By Hassan Zaggi
In an effort to showcase, replicate and sustain innovative health system solutions, DGI Consult has debuted what it christened Health System Emerging Solutions Forum.
The first edition of the Forum which was held in Abuja, on Tuesday, is meant to be an annual event. It was convened in collaboration with the Nigeria Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Forum under the leadership of Chief Moji Maknjuola.
The maiden edition of the Health System Emerging Solution Forum featured potent interventions geared towards optimizing health resources, especially manpower, money, and materials.
Speaking, the Managing Partner of DGI Consult
Dr. Gafar Alawode, disclosed that the Forum is an annual experience-sharing assemblage of a wide array of stakeholders, where key lessons from important health system interventions implemented locally and internationally will be showcased to enable better understanding and replication of such interventions, with the ultimate goal of achieving impact at scale.
He noted that the inspiration for starting the Health System Emerging Solutions Forum is not different from the inspiration for starting DGI Consult.
According to him: “Since its inception in 2018, the DGI Consult team has been inspired by core values of creativity, excellence and equity and the catchphrase ‘boldly driving sustainable solutions with excellence’ to design and implement a number of client-funded initiatives in the areas of health system evidence generation and analytics and so on.
“Reflecting on the modest results that we have achieved so far and the great initiatives being implanted by a wide array of other stakeholders, we realised the importance of having a platform that showcases the various innovations and interventions being implemented locally and internationally, for better understanding and to enhance the chances of sustainability, replication and ultimately, impact at scale.”
Responding to questions from journalists, Dr. Alawode said that the Forum “is abouit how do we optimise our health resources, how do we get the best from the health resources, man power, money and materials so that we can make progress towards Universal Health Coverage.
“I think this is very important considering the fact that we don’t have all the money to spent on health and there are lots of things that we can do to ensure that we get it right.
“As you can hear from many speakers on how to use technology, how to use data and how to use good governance and everything so that we can be able to get the best out of human resources and get the best out of money. You can see a facility where they digitize their financial management and their income increased and quality of care increase.
“You can listen to Yobe who were able to use data to look at how they are doing and what is the performance level and what they needed to do differently.
“That is the essence of it and to look at the best practices across the country and internationally. You can listen to presentation from London School on how we can be able to manage the issue of corruption.”
On his part, the Director General, Natinoal Health Insurace Authority (NHIA), Dr. Kelechi Ohiri, commended DGI Consult for taking the initiative to create the platform to facilitate the exchange of lessons, ideas and experiences for strengthening capacity building and health systems.
Represented by the Director of Standard and Quality Assurance of the agency, Dr. Yakubu Agada, the DG said: “It is a commendable effort to address the paucity of platforms dedicated to showcasing effective, interventions and understanding how they can be successfully impleemented within our context and the limitations of available resources.
“As we collectively strive to optimize these resources for health, especially in the light of fiscal constraints, I am inspired by the theme of this forum. Mobility, pooling, and strategically purchasing healthcare are integral components of our health financing strategies, and I look forward to engaging in insightful discussions on various interventions.”
On her part, the Convener, Nigeria UHC Forum, Chief Moji Makanjuola, charged the participants to do every thing possible ensure easy access to affordable and quailitative health care by all Nigerians.
“For each intervention we make, it is like we are just starting until every Nigerian have access to affordable healthcare,” she stressed.
She charged health insurance agencies for create more awareness, as according to her, a lot of Nigerians are not aware of the operational guidelines of the health insurance.
She called for more involvement of the media to ensure that there is more awareness creation.
