Overview:

Leyaata Hospital is scheduled to open with a soft launch in July 2021 and hard open November 2021. It will be the first hospital in this northern region of Ghana and will serve a population of over 100,000 persons.  This hospital is the fruition of over 11 years of planning by the Northern Empowerment Association (NEA) and Ghana Rural Integrated Development (GRID), partner non-governmental organizations. NEA was started in the 1970’s by a group of school friends in Ghana. GRID is a Canadian and USA organization that was formed in the 1980’s to support NEA. In 2008 GRID sent the first health team (GHT) to Carpenter, where NEA has property and manages several of their initiatives. The GHT provided 2 week mobile medical, surgical, dental and optometry services to the region.   It was always evident that two weeks of medical services each year was insufficient and that a hospital in the region was necessary. The Leyaata Hospital will be a 50-bed model hospital with medical, surgical, dental and eye care services for both inpatients and outpatients. It is going to be a model hospital through the provision of excellent patient centred care, diagnostics, management, fiscal accountability, and partnerships. The leadership of the GHT now serve as consultants to the leadership of the hospital to bring this vision to life. The pharmacy department will support both inpatient and outpatient services. The head pharmacist is tasked with designing, implementing and evaluating inventory, distribution and clinical pharmacy services. The PSF – Ghana mission is to support the head pharmacist in all these areas and processes prior to the opening of the hospital and potentially beyond and not all aspects will be fully developed at the time of hospital opening.  

The priority areas identified to date in collaboration with the Leyaata Hospital pharmacist and administration are, the development of electronic medical record (EMR), inventory management and procurement, clinical pharmacy services, separation of inpatient and outpatient pharmacy services.

Objectives:

Our objectives are as follows:

• Finalize Pharmacy Policy & Procedure Manual.

• Test Pharmacy Inventory Management software.

• Assess if all aspects of physical pharmacy space and equipment are in place.

• Observation and feedback for outpatient services with observation and feedback on patient flow as well as workflow of staff; future planning for advancement of patient services with a focus on expansion and revenue generation.

• Observation and feedback for inpatient medication dispensing workflow.

• Observation and feedback to clinical pharmacists on patient assessment, therapeutic recommendations and patient monitoring, discharge planning and follow up; assess clinical knowledge and provide specific education if requested.

• Assist in the development of a pharmacy resource library.

• Continue to develop virtual pharmacy education in-services to provide ongoing education to the pharmacists.

Team Members:

• Linda Dresser (Mission Lead)

Collaborations:

• NEA: Northern Empowerment Association 

• Ghanaian NGO 

• founded in the 1970's by a group of Ghanaian students 

GRID: Ghana Rural Integrated Development 

• Canadian and USA organization formed to support the goals of NEA 

• Launched in Canada in the 1980’s Canada and 2014 in the USA 

• Ghana Health Team - 2008 - 2019; eleven missions to provide medical, surgical, dental and eye services in a two-week mobile clinic model; partnership with Hernia International 

• Ghana Health Partners - 2019 - ongoing; GHT leaders committed to partnering with Leyaata Hospital leaders to bring NEA/GRID vision to full fruition