9 months ago
To improve the provision of primary healthcare, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has released its Network of Practice (NoP) standards.
The NoP reaffirms the industry's dedication to finding creative ways to expand everyone's access to high-quality, necessary healthcare and population-based services.
When introducing the guidelines at the 2024 Senior Managers Meeting in Accra, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, the Director-General of GHS, stated that they were in keeping with the strategic goal of achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2030.
The focus of the meeting was "Accelerating Progress towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) with a Strengthened Primary Health Care (PHC) through the Networks of Practice (NoP) Approach," and it also marked the official founding of the Ghana Health Service Institute.
The Ghana Health Service Institute (GHSI) aims to improve health outcomes by training and developing managers' leadership abilities.
According to Dr. Kuma-Aboagye, the NOP guidelines were necessary since Ghana's Primary Health Care (PHC) strategy continued to be the cornerstone of the strategy for achieving UHC with an emphasis on improving health outcomes.
"Key health indicators like child health, maternal health, access to immunization programs, and health care utilization have significantly improved as a result of this policy.
"Yet, there are still a number of important obstacles that need to be addressed in order to improve service delivery at the sub-national level. These include subpar provider-payment mechanisms, inadequate capacity to provide the basic package of PHC services, and inadequate referral systems."
Senior managers were urged by the Director-General to expedite plans and tactics in order to help the nation achieve UHC.
The Senior Managers' Meeting (SMM) is a component of the larger process that evaluates the health sector's performance, identifies priority concerns to include in the yearly planning, and gives senior managers guidance on high-priority interventions.
It also seeks to assist in catching up on important operational and policy concerns that were raised in the meeting the year before.
The Minister of Health's Special Advisor, Dr. Baffour Awuah, expressed gratitude to the senior managers for their previous year's efforts and dedication to providing high-quality healthcare.
In order to guarantee that the goal of reaching UHC was accomplished, he pleaded with them to continue with the same degree of dedication throughout 2024.
Speaking on behalf of development partners, Professor Francis Kasolo, the country representative of the World Health Organization, gave the GHS assurances that they will continue to offer the necessary support to achieve UHC.
In order to capitalize on the results of the Harmonized Health Facility Assessment, he urged GHS to increase the NoP.
In order to improve the NoPs' implementation, he stated that the WHO was anticipating the results of the scheduled medium-term review of the health sector medium-term plan.
The CEO of the Health Facilities Regulatory Agency (HeFRA), the Coalition of NGOs in Health, and Dr. Nana Ayew Afriyie, Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, were among the dignitaries present at the meeting.
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