AMPATH Ghana

Submitted by: Arielle Hernandez

CARE

Chronic Disease Management Program

• Diabetes/Hypertension

  • Development of data capture forms for care and visit encounters
• Cervical Cancer
  • 2nd cohort of CDM-Cervical Cancer Screening Training Program completed in August
• OB/GYN
  • Maternal and Fetal Medicine Unit celebrating one year!
• Surgery
  • NYU is working with surgical colleagues at TTH to develop standardized care pathways for common surgical conditions

Pharmacy

• A Pharmacy team led by Dr. Tina Tran from Temple and including Imran Manji from Moi visited TTH/UDS in July to conduct a situational assessment with TTH/UDS pharmacy leadership and faculty

Internal Medicine

• Several hospitalists and primary care faculty from NYU are preparing to visit Tamale in 2024 and 2025 to continue quality improvement and clinical education work within the Department of Internal Medicine and across all missions

Infectious Diseases Molecular Diagnostic Lab

• Preparing for September visit with Germfree (laboratory manufacturer) to check on final installation of the laboratory and for training
• UDS/TTH creating a committee and strategic plan to support governance and laboratory operations

 EDUCATION

 Dentistry

• Ongoing discussions with NYU College of Dentistry and UDS Dental School Dean to collaborate on dentistry education/curriculum and skills laboratory

Surgery

• Laparoscopic training program in development

Medical Student Exchange

• One UDS student has arrived in NYC to begin medical rotations at NYU Langone and Bellevue for the next 6 weeks

TEACH

• TSIM
  • Working with medical equipment distributors for manikin procurement
  • Continuing to work with the 10 faculty who attended the NYSIM course to develop and implement simulation into their departments
• 2024 Pilot Projects
  • Teams are preparing for their visits to Tamale in October and early January for project implementation
  • Midway progress reports submitted
• 2025 Pilot Projects
  • Received 42 Expressions of Interest
    • • Instructions for Proposals to be shared once all pairings with UDS/TTH faculty are completed
• ECHO
  • Launched two ECHO programs at the start of the months under “AMPATH Ghana ECHO”
    • Chronic Disease Management – 2 sessions held
    • Antimicrobial Resistance – 2 sessions held
  • Supported logistics development for iECHO platform including survey updates, participant registration, and staff onboarding and training for second month of implementation
  • Presented lessons learned from Project ECHO to AMPATH Global Education group
  • Planning for Moi faculty to travel to Ghana to support start of ECHO in new areas, such as nephrology, echocardiography, pharmacology, etc.
  • Planning roll-out of new ECHO programs, including cervical cancer
  • Discussed ideas for using the new iECHO efficiently involving ECHO PowerPoints and/or recordings
  • Planning for longevity of program support and personnel involved in Ghana ECHO
• Human-Centered Design
  • Pilot Project groups continued their project development
• Monitoring & Evaluation
• Nursing and medicine client satisfaction surveys have been implemented at TTH

RESEARCH

Research Proposals (in development or submitted): 

• Five conference abstracts have been submitted to 17th Annual Conference on the Science of Dissemination and Implementation in Health (Academy Health D&I)
• 10 abstracts submitted to Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) Conference
• MACH Ghana manuscript viewpoint manuscript has been prepared for full co-author review, with plans to submit to The Lancet Global Health
• Extreme Heat is undergoing manuscript drafting, with intent to submit to Nature Communications in September
• USAID proposal lead by UDS “Strengthening Institutional Partnerships in Severe Acute Malnutrition and Neonatal Health” submitted
• NIH ROH lead by Akosua Bonsu Karikari “MaNS-NG (Maternal and Neonatal Sepsis in Northern Ghana: Antimicrobial Resistance and Genomic Epidemiology of Group B Streptococcus)” submitted

Research Projects (Active, ongoing):

• CDEEHS is undergoing data analysis

Research Deliverables:

• Five conference abstracts have been submitted to 17th Annual Conference on the Science of Dissemination and Implementation in Health (Academy Health D&I)
• 10 abstracts submitted to Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) Conference
• MACH Ghana manuscript viewpoint manuscript has been prepared for full co-author review, with plans to submit to The Lancet Global Health
• Extreme Heat is undergoing manuscript drafting, with intent to submit to Nature Communications in September

OTHER INFORMATION

Partnerships/Donations/Communications

• Partnerships
  • Held donor visit in July with Africare for cervical cancer program
• Donations
  • Two containers of medicines and consumables in process with Afya Foundation
  • Two separate donations in development for CDM program and other areas of care from Direct Relief
• Communication
  • Article on AMPATH Ghana’s ECHO program submitted to ECHO newsletter
  • Working with NYUGSOM Surgery team to create a residency recruitment video that highlights the global surgery rotation offered with AMPATH Ghana
  • Three news articles published on website: “Enhancing Neurology Education Together”; “Marketing of Skin Lightening Creams in Ghana and Adolescent Health”; “Clinical Pathways Improve Care in Northern Ghana”

Recruitment

• Ghana-based Program Assistant, Program Officer, and Program Manager began July 1

FLAIR (US Embassy Ghana)

• Pilot projects continue co-development and creation by faculty dyads
• UDS faculty attending visa appointments and confirming travel dates for September and October
• NYU faculty travelling to Tamale starting in October