By: Murtala Issah
Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has launched a digital application for the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). The initiative forms part of efforts to increase access to healthcare and support efforts to achieve universal healthcare by 2030.
With the new application, holders of Ghana cards can sit in the comfort of their homes to register or renew their health insurance cards. According to the Vice President, “the New NHIS mobile app will operate on both Android and iOS smartphones and will allow NHIS members to securely pay registration and membership renewal fees from their mobile money wallets, Bank and Visa cards.”
Dr. Bawumia reiterated government’s commitment pursuing digitalization as a means of delivering improved services including the health sector to Ghanaians. “By the end of next year, we will network about eighty percent of all hospitals, and by the end of the following year, we will complete the networking of hundred percent of all our hospitals,” he announced.
More than sixteen million Ghanaians, representing fifty-four percent of the population are registered on the National Health Insurance Scheme. The launch coincided with the month long celebrations of the NHIS active month which is under the theme, “the Role of Digitalisation in Modern Healthcare Delivery: Recounting Ghana’s ICT Journey In the 4th Republic.”
The Chief Executive Officer of the NHIA, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye, announced plans to improve service delivery. “The authority is currently pursuing a 5-Point turn-around strategy dubbed 5D’s to revamp operations of the scheme through Digitization, Development, Dissemination, Data, and Decentralization,” he explained.
