Events

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.

The National Health week was celebrated during the week of August 25th – 29th, with the theme of ‘Preventing Life Style Diseases’ placing special emphasis on life style diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart attack. The target group was the working classes particularly the senior managers. This was because many times they are so busy that simple preventive measures such as exercise, having less stress, healthy diet are not adhered to and are frequently eating on the run.

The Hospital’s Social Committee was the drive behind these by organising basic blood checks, high blood pressure checks and also health talks were given during individual checks. Additional posters depicting life style diseases were also posted up. This event took place on the hospital lawn in the mornings. Invitations to all business houses to attend were arranged in advance resulting in a good turnout, however, having said that most that attended were staff and not the managers. After lunch all hospital staff was grouped into various teams and a game of volleyball was played with a 10 minutes warm up exercise conducted by the Physiotherapy Department. There was a good turnout and all staff voice their appreciation for the evens organised. The staff games are continuing every Wednesday afternoon as a means of preventing lifestyle disease within the health sector and also to foster good team off and on court.

Ms Theresa Palou
Pathology Services

NB: For additional photos from National Health Week 2008 at Goroka General Hospital please click here.

Story by Ms Theresa Palou (Manager, Pathology Services at Goroka General Hospital)

The quality laboratory training for laboratory managers was conducted in Goroka for a week on the 22nd – 26th of September2008. This training was not only for medical laboratories but also for industries such as mining, soil, food, and beer placing emphasis on quality and laboratory standards which is practiced in the world.

This training was facilitated by the National Industries Standard Technology (NISIT) and conducted by a representative of the National Accreditation Testing Authority (NATA) from Australia. Although the training was for a week, it was very intense. The first three days were spent looking at aspects for a quality laboratory management including familiarising with laboratory standards, the importance of having standards, what to do to get accredited and how to utilise managerial skills in the most effective way.

During the last two days we were taught on how to conduct audits and what to expect if our laboratory is to be audited.  Training such as these is important because then we are able to meet medical laboratory standards and this enables us to improve our turnaround time and have confidence in the results we sent to the clinicians.

Story by Ms Theresa Palou (Manager, Pathology Services at Goroka General Hospital)

The hospital management took the initiative to invite the prisoners from the Bihute Correctional Services for a week to clean the Hospital which was also welcomed by the Correctional Services management.

This event took place on the 18th – 22nd of August, 2008. The prisoner’s team comprised of 20 of which 8 were females. The 12 male were responsible for cleaning the hospital lawn, the flower beds and the drains whilst the 8 females clean and scrubbed the walls of the wards and the buildings.

In return the hospital provided them with morning and afternoon tea and also lunch. The lunch provided was especially appreciated as our kitchen staff cooked them food that they normally don’t have whilst in prison. This was fully funded by the Hospital management and due to its success is envisaging this to take place on a regular basis. At the end of the week the Hospital looked beautiful and clean including the wards.