The Minister for Communication, Digital Technology and Innovation, Samuel Nartey George, has called for stronger integration of digital technology into medical education, saying future doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals must be prepared to work with emerging technologies.
He said advances in healthcare delivery, including telemedicine, artificial intelligence and data analytics, had made technology an essential part of modern medical practice.
Speaking during a visit to the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) in the Volta Region, H on Sam George stressed that medical education must evolve to reflect the changing nature of healthcare.
“You cannot have medical sciences in the 21st century that are not technology driven,” he said, emphasising the need to equip students with the tools they would encounter in professional practice.
The Minister noted that technology was transforming the delivery of healthcare, pointing to telemedicine and the use of robotic systems in medical procedures as examples of how digital innovation was expanding the possibilities of treatment.
He said students pursuing medical and allied health programmes needed to understand areas such as data management, data analytics, artificial intelligence and prompt engineering.
According to him, these competencies could complement students’ traditional academic training and help them adapt to the changing demands of the healthcare sector.
Sam George described the One Million Coders Programme as an opportunity to provide industry-tailored digital skills to students, including those whose primary areas of study were not computer science or information technology.
He welcomed UHAS’s interest in incorporating the programme into its academic structure and said the Ministry was ready to work with the university on the integration process.
The engagement formed part of the Ministry’s two-day tour of the Volta Region, undertaken with GIFEC to assess the implementation of digital skills initiatives and rural telephony infrastructure.
