MLC/WHO Event: Primary Health Care Innovations
MLC Event | 8th September 2021
Primary Health Care (PHC) is amongst the most pressing areas of the health sector, innovators and social enterprises addressing PHC play a key role in the provision of and access to vital healthcare services and products for hard-to-reach populations. Yet, today, such enterprises still face numerous barriers to scaling their impact, including establishing connections to country-level stakeholders representing the ‘demand side’ for innovative solutions. In light of this, on September 8th, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Innovation Hub hosted an event in collaboration with the Million Lives Collective (MLC) to showcase a number of PHC innovations and to provide an opportunity to discuss ways to better match the demand for healthcare products and services with the supply of innovative solutions. These innovations were selected from a Top 10 list based on an independent evaluation of PHC innovations with a proven impact on health outcomes.
Louise Agersnap, Head of the WHO Innovation Hub, opened the session, highlighting that bringing together stakeholders in the global health ecosystem is crucial to support the scaling of innovations in response to real demand and ultimately accelerate impact.
“Impact can only be achieved through partnerships as no one can do this alone”.
The event featured speakers from the Aga Khan University, and Million Lives Collective Members PharmAccess Group, Kaaro Health, and Healthy Entrepreneurs.
Saleem Sayani, Director of the Technology Innovation Support Center at the Aga Khan University, kicked off the event by presenting Hayat. This innovation fills gaps in primary health service delivery faced by people living in poverty and hard-to-reach areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Hayat consists of a mobile application and web portal used to improve service delivery, reduce morbidity and mortality, and increase health coverage of basic services. The technology collects information and tracks medical records in a centralized system to provide accurate and in-time information for patients and doctors to make sound decisions based on medical evidence. It also aims to improve governance and accountability by working closely with governments. Hayat ultimately aims to strengthen health systems, with the goal of reaching an impact of one million people in the coming years and scaling in diverse geographical settings. More information can be found here.
Also speaking to quality of care and service provision, Director of Quality at PharmAccess, Nicole Spieker presented SafeCare: a system aimed at improving the quality of primary health care in developing countries by creating standardized criteria across health care infrastructures. SafeCare is a 5-step quality improvement process used for assessments in healthcare facilities that adapts global criteria to the context of developing countries. It is a methodology with quality standards that local institutions can adopt and adapt with the aim of providing certificates that healthcare structures can use to testify their quality. PharmAccess is institutionalizing this methodology with local governments to address implementation barriers and strengthen health systems. Currently, it is implemented in over 4,000 healthcare facilities in 14 African countries (with 5.8 million patient visits per month). Over eighty-one percent of all SafeCare facilities have reported an improved quality score. More information on SafeCare can be found here.
Quality of care is also a pressing priority in Uganda, where every day 74 mothers and 19 babies lose their lives due to preventable causes. To address this issue Co-founder and CEO of Kaaro Health Angella Kyomugisha and her team are working to bring affordable care to hard-to-reach villages in Uganda where there is no health infrastructure within 20 km. Kaaro Health has designed container clinics that can rapidly deploy in villages to provide primary health services so that patients visiting the clinic can avoid walking long distances to access services. The clinics are easy to transport and can be installed in just 24 hours. In addition, Kaaro Health provides technology to connect rural clinics to doctors using telemedicine; delivering online medical care and consultations. Angella explained,“when a patient visits a rural clinic, their exams are sent to doctors in remote cities for consultations.“ Currently, Kaaro Health’s innovation has impacted over 1.6 million lives and is looking to expand to other villages in Uganda. More information on Kaaro Health can be found here.
Janharmen Drost, Business Development Manager at Healthy Entrepreneurs, concluded the panel by presenting a Community Health System model aimed at addressing various problems in the current African Health ecosystem. These include addressing scarce access to primary healthcare for the over 600 million people living in hard-to-reach villages in Sub-Saharan Africa. In such areas, low motivation and low remuneration of healthcare workers generates a poor retention and quick staff turnover. On top of this, scarce career growth opportunities and a lack of commodities disincentivizes doctors from living in rural communities, hence intensifying the distance between patients and health workers. To address this issue, Healthy Entrepreneurs proposes a system where workers can be trained to become entrepreneurs that can serve in local communities. Entrepreneurs are supplied with a mobile phone which can be used for health education, counselling or product ordering. In addition to this model, a tele-health or ‘doctor at a distance’ scheme allows doctors in cities to connect with patients in rural areas via an entrepreneur aided by an end-to-end supply chain which, according to Janharmen, “is affordable, reliable and trusted in the community”. To date, this community health integration model has doubled the use of modern contraceptives and has increased health knowledge and the use of improved water sources (+ thirty-five percent) Income has doubled for the entrepreneurs and resulted in the creation of a community health system treating 8 million patients directly in their own communities. More information on Healthy Entrepreneurs can be found here.
The pitches and presentations delivered by the four innovators were followed by group discussion and networking sessions. The key takeaway from the event is the importance of connecting demand and supply in an effective way. Challenges can be transformed from burdens to opportunities only when real collaboration between innovators and the global innovation ecosystem is present. Often, it is not a matter of reinventing the wheel but leapfrogging what works, and this is where the real power of partnership can be leveraged.
*The recording of the event can be watched here.
