Empowered community approach pays more attention to non-communicable diseases particularly diabetes and hypertension. The project started 2019 in Ghana.
Diabetes and hypertension remain two of the most common chronic conditions globally. In the African region,19 million adults aged 20-79 years are living with diabetes with a regional prevalence of 3.9% (Atlas, 2021). Similarly, hypertension also remain a major contributor to the global burden of non-communicable diseases and mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite being a modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease, hypertension has not received the needed attention in Ghana.
The AfyaPro App more explicitly in the patient journey and in the community empowerment sessions, because the the AfyaPro app into the patient journey of care has shown to enhance the quality of life for patients. This gives the patient experiences as they progress across the care of continuum. Currently community empowerment has played a key role in the management and prevention of diabetes and hypertension.
Results obtained for three sites: Kwahu, Weija and Eden
The AfyaPro App gave patients a chance to experience real time feedbacks after each clinic visits, all patients’ clinical parameters including HbA1c, blood pressure, cholesterol were easily documented using the Mobile app.
Patients were provided reliable disease information, assist in self -care management and enabled to have a more effective interaction between patients, doctors and health care providers. This mostly done by an assigned care provider, the app has a data sharing capability that focused on glucose data, further provide insight in diabetes management, also provide health providers with easy visualize patterns to inform patients about medication adjustments.
Results of the Workshop
The program brought together decision makers in different health aspect such as HEFRA (Health Facilities Regulatory Agency), Ghana Health Services, medical doctors, diabetes specialist, heads of private facilities, public health professionals and researchers.
The main theme of the workshop was “solution-oriented approaches to tackle NCDs (Non communicable Diseases) in Ghana. The main discussions were on the concerns and challenges in diabetes and hypertension management in facilities and exploiting the potential of digital transformation in study cases of the diabetes clinics presented.
