In one of the tragic events in 2024, five persons lost their lives while travelling to a film set when the boat they were in capsized. Among the victims was renowned actor John Paul Odonwodo, known as Junior Pope. This devastating incident highlights a critical issue: the blatant disregard for fundamental safety protocols.
Furthermore, the lack of swift emergency response from responders or government agencies responsible for handling such life-threatening situations compounded the tragedy.
This tragic incident is one of many that underscore the significant shortcomings of the Nigerian healthcare system, particularly in emergency response. These preventable deaths contribute to Nigeria’s alarmingly low life expectancy, currently around 55 years. This grim reality should serve as a wake-up call for all Nigerians, especially the Nigerian government, as the lack of adequate emergency care puts lives at constant risk. A sudden cardiac arrest could be the last for many.
There is no denying that the Nigerian healthcare sector is in a mess. Among the 167 countries surveyed by the Germany-based platform Statista, Nigeria was ranked 157th in terms of the best health system in the world in 2023. Nigeria’s shameful placement in this ranking is not surprising. As it stands, the Nigerian health sector is grappling with challenges such as inadequate facilities, poor funding, and the inavailability of well-trained personnel, including doctors and nurses, as a result of brain drain, to name a few.
Another cogent issue responsible for Nigeria’s high mortality rate is the country’s dysfunctional emergency response mechanism. According to a report by the World Bank, 50 percent of Nigeria’s annual 2.4 million deaths could have been prevented if the country had an effective and functional emergency response system. The report further states that 54 percent of these deaths are due to conditions that could have been prevented by efficient emergency medical care.
Issues such as limited and uneven distribution of ambulances, inadequate number of trained personnel, lack of functional command and control centres, and poorly equipped hospitals and health care centres, led the Global Health Security Index, in 2019, to score Nigeria 12.5 out of 100 for its health sector’s low preparedness and emergency response planning. This makes the need for prompt interventions in the Nigerian health system, especially the Nigerian emergency response, critical.
These damning facts about the Nigerian health sector’s failing emergency response system are numerous. However, rather than dwelling on the problems, there is a need to look for long-term solutions to these problems. One mechanism that has helped some countries with vibrant health sectors is the deployment of technology and their effective leverage of essential data to solve their existing problems.
If we must significantly change the lot of the Nigerian Health sector, we must be ready to make better decisions and dictate the sector’s outcome with the help of the data available to us. The lack of comprehensive and reliable data is a significant challenge facing the Nigerian healthcare sector. The data currently collected by the Nigeria National Health Information System (NNHIS) is often fragmented, disorganised, and insufficient for informed decision-making.
In the words of renowned management consultant Geoffrey Moore, ‘Without big data, you are blind and deaf and in the middle of a freeway.’ This stark reality underscores the urgent need for Nigeria to embrace the transformative power of data analytics, particularly in the healthcare sector. By harnessing the insights gleaned from data, we can effectively navigate health emergencies, improve patient outcomes, and ultimately save lives.
The term “Data Analytics” might sound perplexing, however, it is simply the process of examining, transforming, and modeling raw data to determine trends and patterns, enabling reliable conclusions, strategic decision-making, and fostering quality planning. Data Analytics helps us understand the past and accurately predict the future, which in essence helps us make informed choices.
The application of Data Analytics is not limited to the health sector; its uses range across business, marketing, finance, and other industries where data is required for efficiency.
Data Analytics in emergency response has become critical for improved service delivery, operational efficiency, and effective decision-making processes. With Data Analytics, there can be a significant improvement in pre-hospital care for patients and an increased effectiveness in the responses to crises and disasters. It also ensures that future emergencies are identified swiftly and prevented.
With the right analysis of data, situation assessment of emergencies will be swift, visualization of the spread of diseases and the impact of disasters will become easier, and forecasts of possible outbreaks of diseases will become easier. Meanwhile, the allocation and deployment of resources including health personnel, medical supplies, and inventory to areas where they are most needed will become seamless, thereby saving more lives.
With Data Analytics, dissemination of information about crisis situations to members of the public becomes effective: alerts and warnings about health threats are passed with ease. Also, public health surveillance, with available data, makes it easy for health officials to understand patterns in disease outbreaks, safety hazards, mortality, and other public health concerns. These deductions help decision-makers come up with solutions that can mitigate undesirable trends.
A compelling example of data analytics in action is evident during the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, particularly in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Overwhelmed by the epidemic, these countries effectively utilized available data for contact tracing, optimizing resource allocation, predicting high-risk areas, and making informed decisions. This data-driven approach significantly contributed to bringing the virus outbreak under control.
The journey to achieving an efficient health emergency response system is a holistic approach that requires quality decisions and actions to be taken. Data Analytics affords the government, hospital management, public and private health facilities, NGOs, and other stakeholders in the health sector, the leverage to create a system we all envisage by enhancing preparedness, ensuring collaboration, and increasing emergency response readiness. This ultimately mitigates the blind approach to emergency response and management, thereby saving lives
To effectively leverage data analytics in emergency response, significant investments are crucial. Investments from the government and private entities must be made in robust data infrastructure, including high-speed internet connectivity, secure data storage systems, and other relevant facilities and competencies. Technological firms must be engaged to improve the data gathering and analysis capacity of the country to enhance the resilience of the country’s health emergency sector.
