The Ghana Health Service (GHS), in collaboration with Incision Academy- Ghana, has introduced an e-health learning platform as an opportunity to build on the capacities of doctors in surgical skills.

This would be done through Continuous Professional Development driven initiatives such as assisting doctors in remote areas to use their mobile phones while on duty to score points for their license by the Medical and Dental Council.

The platform is being created with support from the Netherlands Embassy and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed with the Incision Group.

Dr Elvis Kuma Forson, the Local Representative of Incision Academy and the Lead Project Manager, said there was a deficit in surgical skills and training worldwide, especially in the emerging economies.

He said standardised approaches to doing surgeries were rare in developing economies because of the lack of skills and services in some of the health facilities.

He said the Incision Academy was set up with the expertise to build the capacities of doctors, through an online learning and training platform.

Dr Forson said the Academy offers online step-by-step guide at the level of individual surgical procedures and this would assist the GHS to retain doctors in community-based health facilities.

He said the facility had a convenient system of payment for credit points with the use of mobile money among other methods of payments, all aimed at making the clinical comment available to all individual health workers in the country.

He gave the assurance that the platform would be progressively updated and upgraded to contain the necessary content and features to make the goals of training, professional networking and e-health delivery possible.

Dr Forson said these would be done with the help of the MTN’s services, through the academy; it would diversify its operations to empower health institutions to deliver e-health services to their communities of operations.

Dr Koku Awoonor-Williams, the Director of Policy and Planning at the GHS, commended the representatives of the academy for the initiative which would help prevent doctors in the remote areas from traveling to the teaching hospitals to build their capacities.