As Lagos State seeks to improve healthcare delivery outcomes, Andrew S. Nevin, Partner and Chief Economist, Pricewaterhousecoopers (PwC) Nigeria, has advised that the state should measure more on Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs), not Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Lagos is doing well with GDP figure but performing poorly in SDG metrics, Nevin said in a presentation as the keynote speaker on economy, human development index and big tech changes for deepening technology and impact healthcare ecosystems in Lagos and across Nigeria.
SDGs are 17 goals set by the UN to be achieved across the globe by year 2030 in the world’s search for real development and include an end to absolute poverty, eradication of hunger and equal education.
“The large economic size of Lagos is not applaudable if it does not reflect improved welfare of an average resident of the state, adjudging by the discrepancy between the prevailing level of human development and SDG,” Nevin declared at the Lagos State three-day eHealth conference holding from 14th- 16th January.
The conference is focusing on the future of healthcare delivery in Lagos and ways in which digitalisation will impact the technology-driven health service.
Also speaking at the conference, Akin Abayomi, commissioner of health, Lagos State, gave an overview of the sector saying that 66 percent of Lagosians stay in shanty environment and need to be planned for.
“We are experiencing importation of massive population in the state because it is an attraction due to it opportunities, but we have severe shortage of human resources for facilities and our population is doubling.”
“We are far away from international bench mark for health. We still lack infrastructure and inadequate power supply is quickly overwhelmed and no sustainable data,” he said.
According to Abayomi, the world is going through the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the hallmark is data. “We are converting issues to data and data to discovery,” he said, noting that genetic composition is based on data, which are to generate a discovery on effective healthcare.
Meanwhile, Nevin says that it is not possible to deliver healthcare effectively in Lagos without eHealth solution which would combine the following technologies: blockchain, drones, artificial intelligence, and internet of things, virtual reality, robotics, animated reality, and 3D printing.
“Health system should implement technology in commitment towards improving health outcomes. No matter the support you give to a State, if you are unable to implement technology, you won’t go far,” said Njide Ndili, PharmAccess Nigeria’s Country Director.
She added that focusing on eHealth, as Lagos State has done, is the way that the state could use communication technology to create innovation in accessing healthcare.
Governor Babajide Sanwo- Olu said the eHealth strategy was a collaboration initiative with stakeholders in developing a sustainable Smart Health Information Platform (SHIP) to interconnect all health facilities from the primary to secondary and tertiary institutions.
The aim was to connect and strengthen all healthcare system and governance in the state to deliver better, faster and smarter healthcare services, he said through Kadri Hamzat, the deputy governor.
He said that eHealth, which tallied with technology, was a master plan of Lagos. He noted that a unique eHealth solution aimed at standardizing the exchange of information, and optimising operating procedures, quality assurance and improving service delivery and patient care and experience.
ANTHONIA OBOKOH
