The Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Ghana has recently been equipped with a new Cisco Network. This has enabled Radiologists to access CT and MRI images from their laptops and mobile phones. The network was also extended to the Pharmacy, Poly Clinic, Cardio, Physiotherapy, Child Health and the Surgical Departments, increasing staff productivity, communication and information flows at the same time keeping costs down.
The benefits are reaping in, since medical staff are now able to access secured patient information across departments, which are now connected, leading them to take carefully informed decisions and reducing patients' waiting time.
All this was made possible by Mr. Clement Adu Twum, a Ghanaian ICT professional residing in The Netherlands,with the assistance of the ICT team of the Hospital. He started this project last year and in April this year, he again went to Ghana on a short-term assignment with IOM, Netherlands' Connecting Diaspora for Development (CD4D) project to continue with the work.
Mr. Adu Twum subsequently went to Ghana in July this year, with other network equipment for the extension of the project to other parts of the hospital. In order to ensure the sustainability of his work, he provided training to the hospital's ICT staff on how to implement Microsoft Office 365, install CCTV, implement Voice over IP Telephone system, install Next Generation Firewall and how to back-up the hospital's data.
This was not Mr. Adu Twum's first time taking part in such a project, he also participated in CD4D's previous project: Temporary Return of Qualified Nationals (TRQN), which led to the Tamale Teaching Hospital becoming a nationwide acknowledged teaching institution for young ICT professionals.
His success was captured in a BBC Documentary on Ghanaians Diaspora wanting to 'give something back' to their country of origin.
Although, Mr. Adu Twum is back in the Netherlands, he continues the training sessions over Skype, TeamViewer, Phone, VPN etc. The Head of ICT of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital has been assigned to lead the team with his assistance from the Netherlands to finalize the implementation of the Cisco Network to all other departments.
