The Board Chairman of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr. Okoe Boye says the “no bed syndrome” experienced at the facility is being managed through the use of technology.
He said the hospital has rolled out an e-health system that includes a component for monitoring the use of available beds which has helped to improve the situation.
The Board Chairman disclosed this at the innovation summit organized by the hospital to outdoor new approaches, technologies and indigenous methods adopted to complement its health care delivery.
“The paperless project which is the e-health system we are rolling out also has a component for electronic monitoring for beds. One can know at the click of the button that at the emergency, the number of bed available. We are trying to use technology. And I think for now it is better. ‘No bed syndrome’ is being managed quite well but to get it out completely, we must apply technology,” he said.
The Korle-Bu teaching hospital has in the past few years been struggling to accommodate patients brought in and expected to be admitted.
In some instances, patients end up losing their lives because they are turned away from the facility due to lack of beds to accommodate them.
But Dr. Okoe Boye says the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, which is one of the country’s largest referral facility is putting in place measures to ensure that future occurrences are forstalled.
“One of the most significant things we’ve done here is to put in place a bed bureau team. The team was there, we’ve resourced them and we are supervising them. To make sure people get beds in our scene, we have to make sure that the emergency unit is always decongested”.
These methods which were introduced by some staff seek to improve health care delivery of the hospital.
“Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital through this summit is trying to showcase to the world what it’s doing currently including some of the modern techniques that are being done in this hospital. We looked at the cardiovascular procedures that are being done right here in Korle-Bu, we also saw some of the innovations when it comes to tools that are necessary for supporting people with developmental issues especially in kids. There are a lot of things happening in this hospital and the decision of management and board is to make sure that we don’t sit on what we are doing. We have to showcase them,” he indicated.
Dr. Okoe Boye also added that, the objective is to bring together ideas from all departments of the hospital for quality healthcare.
“Korle-Bu is one of the biggest facilities in West-Africa. We have a staff strength of over 6,000, we have close to 25 departments and there are people who don’t know what colleagues are doing in other departments. This is an opportunity to come together and be aware of what their colleagues are doing and through this process learn and grow together”.
