Africa-Press – Botswana. It is critical for both the public and private health sectors to work harmoniously to ensure efficient and effective delivery of health services to the public.
This was said by deputy permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health, Dr Onalenna Kgokgwe at a Digitalisation of Health Services engagement workshop organised by the ministry for Business Botswana Health Sector recently.
“This is one health sector, both public and private, because we are serving on patient. For this reason, the ministry found it fitting to organise the engagement workshop for private health practitioners to share with them objectives of the ministry’s e-health system and newly launched TsogoJwame project, which is aimed at digitalising the healthcare services,” Dr Kgokgwe said.
Dr Kgokgwe, who is also project lead for the TsogoJwame, said the e-health platform would help monitor patients remotely and prevent medical error as it would afford both public and private health sector to share health data responsibly, through a secure manner or system.
“By doing so, this would also help improve patient experience, strengthen the national health system and also create an accessible and affordable services, as they both served one patient,” she added.
For her part, health services director, Dr Pamela Smith-Lawrence appreciated the project leadership and organisers for playing a meaningful role in helping the ministry in its endeavour to continuously improve healthcare provision in the country.
Dr Smith-Lawrence also thanked private health practitioners for attending the workshop in large numbers.
“Digitalisation of healthcare services initiative is one of the good examples of how the government’s Public Private Partnership initiative to help improve delivery of services to the public,” she said.
However, she expressed concern about private health practitioners, especially those based in Gaborone, for lagging behind in utilising the Botswana Master Health Facility List, which provided information about all the healthcare facilities and services in the country, such as facility name, location and contacts. Giving the TsogoJwame project overview, Ms Monica Somolekae said the digital health initiative would also help improve institutional capacity and skills for better and speedy delivery of health services to the public.
Ms Somolekae said the ministry had electrified all its health facilities and the remaining health facility would be electrified during this financial year to ensure easy and better access of the digital system.
“Secondly, we needed to ensure that there is connectivity, as it is the next key item required for the clinician to have access to the system or for the patient to be able to experience the system. Thirdly, is having the right infrastructure that will be able to host all the system for you as the private sector to be able to plug in and interact with the system, as well,” she added.
She also emphasised that for better outcomes and experience of the system, there was need for the ministry to have in place up to date or today’s applications or systems, in today’s technology.
In a vote of thanks, Business Botswana Health Sector chairperson, Dr Tuelo Ntwaagae commended the ministry for the work it had done towards the digital transformation journey.
Dr Ntwaagae also appreciated the ministry for having found it important to engage the private health practitioners on its e-health initiative.
He encouraged the ministry to continue engaging the private health sector to ensure that it was brought on board and comfortable with the direction the ministry was headed to in improving the country’s healthcare services.
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