Dr Bawumia Launches New ‘My NHIS’ App – Reveals Ghana Card To Become Sole Card For Accessing Healthcare

Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has revealed that the Ghana Card will soon become the sole card for accessing healthcare in Ghana.

The Vice President said the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) Card is to be linked to the Ghana card and once it has covered the entire population, the NHIS card will be phased out and the Ghana card will be the sole means to access healthcare in Ghana.

Bawumia made this revelation during his keynote speech at the NHIS Active month celebration held in Tamale on Monday, December 5th 2022, during which he launched a new app, MY NHIS, a homegrown digital platform to allow Ghanaians to register for the NHIS from anywhere in the world without visiting an NHIS office.

The app is to augment the NHIS Mobile USSD renewal platform, which can also be used to register for the scheme right from the comfort of your home.

Bawumia officially unveiled the homegrown ‘My NHIS’ digital platform at the University for Development Studies (UDS), Tamale Dungu campus.

The MyNHIS app, Dr Bawumia explained, serves as an NHIS office in one’s home or pocket.

“The new NHIS mobile app will operate on both Android and iOS smartphones and will allow NHIS members to securely pay registration and membership renewal fees from their mobile money wallets, Bank and Visa cards. 

“Embedded in the MyNHIS app is a member authentication feature to enable healthcare providers validate the membership status of members of the scheme before providing healthcare to them. This feature of the application will also help to reduce spurious claims, ranging from impersonation and claims manufacturing resulting from collusion between NHIS clients and healthcare providers. We believe that this milestone will accelerate progress towards our quest to achieve universal health coverage by 2030,” he indicated.

During his speech, Bawumia also emphasised the need for existing and future NHIS members to link their NHIS and Ghana cards.

“When all members of the Scheme are linked to their Ghana Cards, the NHIS card will be phased out and the Ghana Card will be the sole card for accessing healthcare services in the credentialled healthcare facilities. We are very keen on making sure we can improve access to quality healthcare delivery. Digitalization of our hospitals and medical records at the public health facilities is on course.” Bawumia said.

The NHIS Journey

Dr Bawumia in his speech also outlined the journey the NHIS has taken since its inception and how it has improved over the years.

“The NHIS since its introduction, has no doubt, contributed to increased utilization of healthcare services, leading to improved health outcomes of the population. There have been significant reductions in maternal and child mortalities over the last two decades. Persons who hitherto could not access healthcare due to financial constraints are now able to do so without paying at the point of service use,” the Veep said.

Bawumia also touched on the government’s digitalisation agenda and how it improves healthcare outcomes.

“We are pursuing digitalisation not for its own sake, but as a means of delivering improved services to our people. We are putting in place systems and utilising the data to make this possible. The role of digital health solutions in our healthcare sector cannot be overemphasised. Over the last few years, we have embarked on a digitalisation drive in the health sector as a response to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) call for member countries to implement digital health interventions in their health systems to improve access to healthcare and well-being for their populations.”

Bawumia also listed ways in which digitalisation has advanced healthcare delivery in Ghana.

The Vice President listed the networking of hospitals, the provision of medical drones and the establishment of the e-pharmacy platform as the major interventions brought to healthcare in Ghana by digitalisation.

Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana