Yesterday the Secretary of the National Department of Health – Dr. Clement Malau, officially opened the Business Resource Center at Goroka General Hospital. This was a momentous occasion for Hospital Staff, Management and the Board and a unique opportunity for the Hospital to share about its IT achievements over the past 18 months and also how an Open Source Software approach can provide long term tangible benefits and savings to the National Health System and other Hospitals within Papua New Guinea.

The opening of the Hospital’s Business Resource Center (BRC) has been 12 months in the planning and finally it happened! The Health Secretary, CEO’s from each of the Highlands Hospitals, senior staff from the Health Department, AUSAID advisors and Goroka Hospital Board and Management were all present for the occasion.

During his 30 min presentation – IT Manager, Robert Schilt emphasised the Information Technology achievements at the Hospital, many a first for a Public Hospital in Papua New Guinea:

1) Deployment of 60 PC’s and laptops including a LAN (1st Hospital in PNG)
2) Establishment of a Business Resource Center (1st Hospital in PNG)
3) Setting of a Training Room and Course(s) with 100+ staff trained) (1st Hospital in PNG)
4) Monthly meetings of a IM&T Steering Committee (1st Hospital in PNG)
5) Hospital Website and Online Health Forum www.ggh.org.pg (1st Hospital in PNG)
6) Access to the Hinari Subscription (1st Hospital in PNG)
7) Development of an organisational Intranet (1st Hospital in PNG)
8) Recent media coverage (1st Hospital in PNG)

(Dr. Clement Malau officially opens the Hospital’s Business Resource Center)

(From L to R: Robert Schilt (IT Manager, GGH), Dr. Joseph Apa (CEO, GGH) and Dr. Clement Malau (Health Secretary))

The CEO of Goroka General Hospital Dr. Joseph Apa also spoke at the Opening and said that the decision by the Hospital to adopt Open Source Software (OSS) over Proprietary Software (Microsoft) as part of its Strategic direction has already led to considerable savings for the Hospital. Dr. Apa elaborated on the benefits experienced by the Hospital by choosing to go down the Open Source path as being:

1) Open Source Operating Systems such as Linux Ubuntu are essentially immune to viruses. The Hospital has not had one virus incident in the last 12 months. What’s really ironic is that none of our Open Source PC’s and Laptops actually run any form of Virus Protection software.

2) By going down the Open Source path we have essentially bypassed the prohibitive costs associated with licensed software such as Microsoft Office and Virus Protection. This in itself has saved Goroka General Hospital approximately K60,000 in setup costs of our new IT Training Center.

3) We have now started the process of investigating Open Source options for an Electronic Patient Records System, something that all Hospitals around PNG are desperately needing and I am amazed at the rich collection of quality Health Information System (HIS) related applications currently available through the Open Source Community.

The ultimate objective in introducing Electronic Information Systems at Goroka General Hospital is to provide both Management and Staff with accurate and timely information that supports and enhances the delivery of an efficient Health Service to the public of the Eastern Highlands. This goal will only be achieved through the provision of efficient, reliable and integrated Health Information Systems that are cost effective.

The IT Team at Goroka General Hospital is more than happy to share their experiences with other PNG Hospitals about to embark upon a similar exercise and can be contacted on info@ggh.org.pg.

Other photos taken at the official Opening of the BRC by the Health Secretary can be viewed by clicking here.