Information and Communication Technology Department

The present ICT department was established in November, 2017 during the tenure of Prof. Abdurrahman Tahir the then Chief Medical Director. At that time, the department had one (1) member of Staff. Over the years, the ICT department have been responsible for developing programs that caters for the running of IT and IT related activities in the Hospital. The department is also mandated with the management of IT facilities as well as training on ICT to both staff and students towards supporting effective teaching activities, research, and delivery of excellent health care services.

Vision: To develop a robust ICT Infrastructure and corresponding services to facilitate the teaching, research, services and administrative functions of the Hospital, and support the realization of the strategic objectives of the Hospital.
Mission: To equip the members of staff, clinical and non-clinical, with requisite ICT skills and tools to enable them carry out their functions effectively and to the highest standards possible.

With the current management under Prof. Ahmed Ahidjo, the department is made up of 17 staff comprising of 16 senior officers and 1 junior officers with 5 functional units. The ICT staff are responsible for all internal and external electronic communication networks, including:

• Wide Area Networks (WAN) and local area networks (LAN) that link systems in UMTH, including Wi-Fi,
• The hardware e.g desktop computers, printers, laptops, tablets and smartphones,
• Software systems e.g email systems, applications and systems, such as patient records.
• Acquisition and maintenance of Computers and ICT related equipment in the Hospital (Smart-class equipments, Internet Telephoning (IP-Phone) and Teleconferencing equipments). Training members of Staff, Students.
• Providing Management with useful advice on IT issues
• Maintenance of Institution Computers System (Troublesshooting and Repaires of Computer and Printers)
• Keeping the Institution's website active
• Handing other adhoc assignements from the Management and various departments which includes Multimedia and Projector at the Institution's Auditorium whenever there is an event both on the working days and weekend.

The ICT staff diagnose and fix faults, support staff who use the systems, and develop improvements. Working in ICT will appeal to you so if you have a natural flair for computing.

• It advices the hospital on Information and Communication Technology its and implementation.
• It is responsible for day to day operational support of the HMIS for the hospital.
• The department provides Internet facility to the hospital and to individual staff of the hospital.
• The department maintains Hardware/Software components which are in use within the hospital which includes the network infrastructure.
• It helps in the implementation and management of Hospital software, Personnel Software, evaluation of staff data, and Nominal roll.
• It helps in updating of staff records using Personnel Software.
• It also helps in troubleshooting and repair of minor computer problems within the hospital.

Roles in UMTH ICT. Some of the roles in UMTH ICT are as follows

• ICT Program Test Analyst
• Systems developer
• Network manager

ICT Program Test Analyst: Most ICT Program test analysts are likely to be graduates who support the technical development and smooth running of new computer systems. This might be the development of an electronic patient record system. They will analyse a problem with a computer system, diagnose the problem and solve it.

Systems Developer work on the IT development programmes such as linking the hospitals by fibre optic connection. These systems help patients book hospital appointments, the software improved operational efficiency, human capacity management, national disease reporting, revenue management, drug/other revolving fund administration, and overall improvement in the quality of health care services across the country.

Network Manager: A network manager usually has a degree or equivalent education. They manage an organisation's IT infrastructure, including servers, email and network security systems. This includes:

• maintaining existing servers
• setting up new servers and systems

The department runs a 24 hours service in the hospital. This is because the internet and recently installed HMIS software runs round the clock.

ICT Department provides 24 hours internet facility to the entire hospital community. Staff who wants to subscribe for the internet services has to pay at any of the cash points and bring the receipt to ICT office. On presentation of the receipt, the staff will be connected to the hospital internet. It is a monthly payment and failure of the staff to pay for the month he/she will be automatically disconnected from the internet facility.

ICT Department is ready to welcome and as well handle any complaint brought to it by the hospital management, departments, units or individual. Since our vision is to provide efficient and reliable Information Communication Technology Services to the entire hospital, we treat any complaint brought to us with utmost dispatch.