Financing Arrangements for state healthcare facilities in Malawi are very tight and leave little room for investment. The hospital management of Zomba Central Hospital, one of the country's four central hospitals responsible for the region's 4.6 million inhabitants, is under strong pressure to implement the Malawian Ministry of Health's receivables for a digitalised healthcare system, but has no financial resources to do so. Aid and research projects by various international partners have led to selective solutions. Nevertheless, visits and consultations are currently delayed due to the bottlenecks. In addition, there is no network that spans the entire hospital, but rather different systems. The power supply is unstable with frequent power outages and significant voltage fluctuations, which can lead to damage to electronic devices, among other things.
The hospital has an IT division with four posts, but only one of these is filled. There is a lack of competent staff to design, set up and maintain a hospital network. However, there are nursing staff with an affinity for IT and a willingness to retrain who can initially take on at least some of the tasks once they have acquired the relevant skills. In the long term, the experts who have already been trained and familiarised with the system can then take over these positions if the Ministry of Health provides the necessary financing. The objective of this project is therefore to lay the foundations for an independent IT division and a hospital network at Zomba Hospital by strengthening the capacities of stakeholders from Zomba Central Hospital to introduce an IT system and laying the foundations for a corresponding IT infrastructure in coordination with the Ministry of Health.
The project factsheet will be available here soon.