A Report by Ruth Oketunde and Angela Atabo, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)

Primary healthcare (PHC), the lowest level of healthcare system, is incontrovertible the closest to people.

It is to provide healthcare services geographical, social or financial barriers, notwithstanding.

However, critics observe that this objective has not been achieved the way it should be.

To boost the activities of the programme, GIZ, a German agency, offers to help in making the country’s primary healthcare system effective.

On the platform of BACKUP-Health programme working to improve capacities of national stakeholders and institutions, GIZ offers interventions.

GIZ utilises financing for health primarily from global health initiatives to promote synergy in health sector.

Mr Markus Wauschikukn of the GIZ-SEDIN programme said that the programme would support the development of the country’s primary healthcare sector and promote the adoption of innovative business and digital solutions for the benefit of citizens’ primary healthcare practitioners.

“To achieve this, SEDIN has carried out desk review, qualitative and quantitative research and analysis, validation session with critical stakeholders.

“Three winners emerged and they developed solutions at different stages of development and commercialisation.

“They address core challenges like maternal and infant health care delivery, data interoperability and management, mobile-based solutions for patients’ management and continuous learning for healthcare workers”, he said.

Ms Margherita Trestini, Marketing Director Prototipi ,said SEDIN Primary Health Care Quali-Quantitative Research was carried out between November 2022 and March 2023 focusing on five states Lagos,Edo, Ogun ,Plateau and Niger State with the aim of understanding the level of awareness and adoption of digital solutions skills at the primary health care level.

Trestini said it also aimed to understand the risks and foreseeable challenges in the support to the selected sector in general and regarding the political environment, stakeholders involved and possibly distortion of markets.

She said that the research revealed the PHCs challenges inhibiting innovation in Nigeria, for instance ,it showed that the primary level of care is rather dominated by CHEWs and junior CHEWs, who make up about 36.8 per cent of all care providers at the PHC level.

She said that the research showed that the awareness of the usage of technological innovations in the Nigerian PHC is limited to rudimentary and tradition with stakeholders mainly aware of usage of computers ,laptops and mobile phones .

“Emerging technologies such as drones,AI and blockchain have a very low level of awareness.

“Some of the reasons why adoption of emerging technologies has low likelihood of adoption included :lack of knowledge of emerging technologies and their functions ,they are perceived to be expensive,very technical ,undependable and not feasible .

“ Health workers perceive rural life as difficult and lack the desire to work in PHCs located in rural communities ,lack of manpower i.e. low doctors to patients’ ratio ,unbalance is service delivery between rural and urban areas.

“Other challenges are inadequate budgetary allocation by the Federal Government, lack of skilled person and lack of ICT infrastructure,poor funding ,bad roads among others. “

Trestini said that it was based on these that the Primary Health Care Hackathon challenges were formulated.

She said the aim was to provide mobile based solutions for primary health care patient’s management, monitor medication delivery, facilitate health workers continuous learning ,solutions dedicated to improving women health or maternity care services ,insurance among others .

According to Ms Sina Uti-Waziri ,Team Leader Local Economic Development, GIZ, “the research we run allowed us to shed a light on the specific needs of primary health care workers.

She said that it was important to understand their awareness of innovative digital and business solutions as well as their interest in adopting technology for patient’s care.

“We know that only innovation which meets the needs of health care workers can be successfully adopted.

“We are confident that the three innovators we have present truly answers to the need on ground as they are mobile based, accessible, user friendly and facilitate health practitioners daily work routine, while digitalizing paper work and health data,” she said.

Some of the healthcare hackathon winners who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) shared the solutions they created.

Mr Eric Maranga, Head of Growth AfyaRekod, said the organisation addresses the gap in access, ownership and mobility of health records across Africa.

He said that the initiative is a patient healthcare platform that focuses on consolidated ownership continued access and mobility of healthcare data for patient across various value chain .

“It connects all the various ecosystems to the patient through the platform built using blockchain and AI technologies, through this,patients are able to digitally store and access their health records ,track their health status ,communicate with providers among others .

Also, Natal Care represented by Uche Udekwe, said the organisation leverages on the power of mobile technology, machine learning and low-cost innovation to combat maternal and infant mortality in Nigeria ,primarily focusing on providing life-saving healthcare information, mental and emotional healthcare support.

Natal also works to monitor medical emergency services to at-risk pregnant women, vulnerable children and nursing mothers reaching them in their home towns and advocating for better access to healthcare at PHC centres especially in under-served communities .

Dr Simpa Dania, Co-Founder at Healthstack Solutions, said the organisation is a global healthcare platform that digitilises all forms of provider organisations such as, primary, secondary and tertiary hospitals, pharmacies, laboratories, imaging centres, blood banks and health insurance .

Healthstack uses technogy to streamline various healthcare providers’ operations and processes to deliver high-quality care within the healthcare system such as telemedicine capabilities ,appointment scheduling, medical record -keeping and payments ,reducing the administration burden on healthcare .(NAN)