Clinical Service Delivery Projects
HSEi works to improve the effeciency and performance of public hospitals and national healthcare systems.Decentralised Cancer Care Programme
From April 2019 to March 2022, the Health Systems Enablement and Innovation (HSEi) unit at Wits University successfully executed the Decentralized Cancer Care Programme & Eastern Cape Collaborative Community Cancer Initiative in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province. Working in collaboration with the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation (BMSF), the three-year project was designed to improve patient outcomes for lung and other common cancers affecting people in the area. The project, implemented with support from Eastern Cape Department of Health and the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital, brought more than R25 million worth of
cancer diagnosis and healthcare programming to the community.
Through this project, HSEi and BMSF successfully established a primary-secondary-tertiary oncology platform—the first of its kind in the region. This platform has already started providing cancer services to underserved rural populations in three local health districts. To date, more than 5,000 people have received care.
In addition to building the infrastructure and capacity needed to screen, diagnose, and treat cancer, the project made several other measurable impacts on the community. It raised awareness of lung cancer, linked people to screening, supported patients, and provided palliative and survivor counselling and care.
5,000
The number of people that have received care at the first-ever primary-secondary-tertiary oncology platform in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, launched by HSEi and BMFS in 2019.
Radiology Access Programme
In developing nations, radiology services are generally concentrated to urban areas and tertiary hospitals. In response to this challenge, HSEi worked with the South African Department of Health to deploy radiologists to tertiary and regional hospitals in the country’s rural Mpumalanga province, a rural part of the country.
Thanks to HSEi, these radiologists are able to provide general radiology services, intervention radiology, and clinical training—improving detection and ultimately saving lives across the region. HSEi has also helped establish teleradiology infrastructure to support off-site reporting and clinical services.
Radiology is a critical component in early detection and diagnosis. There are only 650 registered radiologists in South Africa, which equates to about 1.2 radiologists per 100,000 people. By contrast, the UK has 4.7 specialists per 100,000 people. The European average is even higher, about 8 times more than South Africa.
Centres of Clinical Excellence: Tertiary Hospitals
HSEi has established Radiology and Oncology Centres of Excellence at Rob Ferreira, Witbank, and Nelson Mandela Academic Hospitals in South Africa. These Centres of Excellence provide early detection services and give communities access to accurate diagnosis and treatments. HSEi collaborates with partners, referring hospitals, academic institutions, researchers, and non-governmental organisations to develop these state-of-the-art facilities, which are led by multi-disciplinary teams of experienced health professionals.
HSEi’s Centres of Excellence aim to:
Advance research
and innovation
Create a training hub
for healthcare professionals
Provide advanced,
high-quality clinical services
Introduce information and communications technologies
for patient care
Improve collaboration with
centres of higher learning,
civil society, and industry
Create quality metrics,
data integration, and
data management