East Africa: Healthcare Innovators Recognised During Launch of Healthcare Innovation Awards
By NewsfromAfrica
Nairobi- – The Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI) is a platform for programs working to improve access to, quality and affordability of privately delivered health care for the poor. It works with partner organizations in Kenya and 15 other countries. The Institute of Health Policy, Management & Research (IHPMR) is CHMI’s analytical partner for East Africa, covering Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
Despite efforts by governments to provide free health care in public facilities, private sector providers are a primary source of care for many people in Africa. Direct payments from households make up the majority of national health expenditures in many countries, resulting to increased access barriers and catastrophic poverty, including deaths. This has driven health innovators to come up with creative ideas that have been implemented as programs, hence made significant impact in accessing quality and affordable healthcare to the poor. Over the last two years, CHMI has identified over 1000 out of which about 300 are in the four East African countries of Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Such innovative ideas therefore, need to be recognized in order to encourage the spirit of excellence among health innovators and scale up the innovations to reach more people, especially the poor and vulnerable.
IHPMR announced the launch of the Healthcare Innovations Awards (HIA) in East Africa. The Launch took place on Thursday, 29 March 2012 at the Fairmont Norfolk Hotel. The Senior Deputy Director Medical Services, Dr Lillian Kocholla was the Guest of Honour. The event’s, main aim is to recognize the outstanding health innovation programs in the East African region, that have increased access to health services, improved quality of service delivery and provided financial protection to the poor and vulnerable. The HIA are sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. The collaborating partners of HIA include the Kenya Healthcare Federation (KHF), Uganda Healthcare Federation (UHF), the Association of Private Health Facilities in Tanzania (APHTA) and the East, Central and Southern African Health Community (ECSA).
The HIA are open to all programs that have been profiled on the Centre for Health Market Innovations (CHMI) East Africa database http://healthmarketinnovations.org. However, the awards will also be open, through a nomination process to any other program in the region that is working towards improving health market performance and financial protection for the poor which has not been documented. The awards will examine five main categories: Financing Care, Organizing Delivery, Enhancing Processes, Changing Behavior and Regulating Performance, and recognize innovators across 13 other subcategories. Programs will undergo three selection stages to ensure maximum transparency and integrity in deciding on the winning programs.
The 2012 HIA awarding process will culminate into a Gala Dinner on May 3rd, at the Sheraton Hotel in Kampala, Uganda during the East Africa Health Federation Conference where the winners will be recognized. They will receive trophies and certificates. The overall winner will also carry home the HIA revolving Trophy.