Browsing by Author "Amponsah, Abraham"

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    Evaluation of clinical preventive services in primary health facilities within the Kumasi metropolis
    (June, 2019) Amponsah, Abraham;
    Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are increasing at an alarming rate in Ghana, with stroke and heart attack among the common causes of deaths amongst adults in the country. Already, Ghana is battling with infectious diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, as well as not meeting its targets in areas such as maternal and child health. Yet several projections suggest that NCDs will continue to increase, with the possibility of outstripping communicable diseases as the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the African region if the current situation is not dealt with. Even though there is some evidence of preventive health service provision in Ghana, the extent to which these services are streamlined and standardized is not well documented. This study set out to evaluate the state of clinical preventive services (CPS) within the Kumasi Metropolis. The cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out in forty-six (46) primary health facilities, 21 government-owned and 25 privately-owned. In each facility, the practitioner likely to provide medical checkup services was purposively interviewed. The findings of the study suggest that primary health facilities in the Kumasi Metropolis do not have adequate structures in place that encourage the provision of medical checkups services. Healthcare being delivered to the public is mainly curative to the neglect of preventive services. Inadequate knowledge and lack of use of evidence-based guidelines for providing medical checkup was observed in most facilities. Most providers relied mainly on their professional discretion without making reference to at least one evidence-based guideline on preventive services as a basis for providing the service. Patronage for CPS was found to be low, accounting for less than 1 % (0 – 0.83%) of all OPD attendance in all 46 facilities.
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    Evaluation of clinical preventive services in primary health facilities wthin the Kumasi metropolis
    (JUNE, 2019) Amponsah, Abraham;
    Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are increasing at an alarming rate in Ghana, with stroke and heart attack among the common causes of deaths amongst adults in the country. Already, Ghana is battling with infectious diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, as well as not meeting its targets in areas such as maternal and child health. Yet several projections suggest that NCDs will continue to increase, with the possibility of outstripping communicable diseases as the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the African region if the current situation is not dealt with. Even though there is some evidence of preventive health service provision in Ghana, the extent to which these services are streamlined and standardized is not well documented. This study set out to evaluate the state of clinical preventive services (CPS) within the Kumasi Metropolis. The cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out in forty-six (46) primary health facilities, 21 government-owned and 25 privately-owned. In each facility, the practitioner likely to provide medical checkup services was purposively interviewed. The findings of the study suggest that primary health facilities in the Kumasi Metropolis do not have adequate structures in place that encourage the provision of medical checkups services. Healthcare being delivered to the public is mainly curative to the neglect of preventive services. Inadequate knowledge and lack of use of evidence-based guidelines for providing medical checkup was observed in most facilities. Most providers relied mainly on their professional discretion without making reference to at least one evidence-based guideline on preventive services as a basis for providing the service. Patronage for CPS was found to be low, accounting for less than 1 % (0 – 0.83%) of all OPD attendance in all 46 facilities.
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    Rationalised allocation of available space and time to lectures at the Central Classroom Block of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
    (2000) Amponsah, Abraham
    This study has been undertaken to develop a model for optimally allocating limited spaces, being classrooms of different capacities, to competing activities, being Lecture or courses, within specified time periods. Data detailing courses held at the Central Classroom Block (CCB) for each period was collected from the various departments of KNUST and a list of rooms and their capacities was obtained from the Examinations office. A dynamicised Assignment Problem, which is a special technique of the Transportation Problem of Linear Programming, was applied to solve the problem of minimizing excess space at CCB. For this purpose a QBASIC programme code implementing a modified Hungarian Algorithm was written by me. At the end of a programme run, unallocated courses were shifted to other periods or classes were split into smaller units and the programme re-run until all courses were allocated. Whereas the model successfully solves the problem of optimal allocation for KNUST, it is recommended that extra classrooms need ultimately to be constructed if the problem is to remain tractable in the face of increasing student population.