Making inclusive health markets a reality
Building a virtuous cycle of trust
Healthcare is the largest economy globally, yet we are far from reaching equitable access. An estimated 11 million people are pushed further into poverty every year because of out-of-pocket healthcare expenses.
Many healthcare systems across sub-Saharan Africa are caught in a downward spiral of poor supply and demand leading to inequities. When banks are unwilling to invest in clinics, clinics cannot improve the quality of their care. Poor quality of care means patients postpone or avoid seeking the care they need. Lack of trust and solidarity mechanisms mean low uptake of social health insurance, especially for the informal sector and low-income communities. When people can’t rely on the system, they feel they can only rely on themselves.
This vicious cycle needs to be broken – and we believe it can be. As a society, we are better off when healthcare is organized collectively, but this requires trust. Since 2006, PharmAccess has been working to create a virtuous cycle of trust in sub-Saharan countries with underserved populations. With more and more trust, inclusive health markets are becoming a reality.
Data-driven and patient-centered healthcare
Faced with increasing pressure on the healthcare system, exacerbated by climate change and fragile economies, countries in sub-Saharan Africa face a growing need for quality healthcare with budgets that are not keeping pace to provide it. This directly threatens the progress made toward universal health coverage (UHC).
Yet there is a huge opportunity here. Wherever they are in the world, people now have, due to the widespread uptake of mobile phones, the potential to communicate and make contracts with each other. Transaction costs have decreased significantly, leading to a huge increase in the choices of real-time, personalized services available.
Healthcare could benefit from these developments more than any other sector, but this is where individuals remain disconnected and information fragmented, especially when it comes to primary healthcare. Why has information technology failed to transform healthcare, where it is needed most? PharmAccess aims to leverage the most powerful aspects of this new digital world to transform the healthcare system.
Digital personal connectivity allows us to rethink and redesign how healthcare is delivered, putting the patient at the center. If data becomes the currency of trust between patients, caregivers, and payers, we can give patients the agency to access care, wherever they are. This leads to cost-effectiveness, smarter decision-making, and more emphasis on prevention and well-being.
How we create value
We apply our value creation model to create transformative systems innovations that can be replicated and adopted by others, focusing on connecting patients and care professionals. We do this through:
Demand-side financing Supporting governments and organizations to provide digitally enabled health insurance and wallets so that people can pay for the care they need, we mobilize resources to support this.
Strengthening the quality of care of healthcare services Introducing quality standards and a stepwise approach, through SafeCare, so public and private partners can work on the quality of care that people expect and eventually is institutionalized.
Innovative care models Digital and mobile technology, we develop innovative care, patient-centric models so healthcare providers gain more agency ensuring that healthcare can be delivered effectively and efficiently to patients.
Increasing investment in healthcare By providing mobile finance solutions, healthcare facilities have the opportunity to invest in the quality healthcare services that they want to offer to patients.
Advocacy & evidence building We support governments and institutions with technical assistance, research, and advocacy to strengthen the infrastructure of their health systems.
By connecting patient groups, care providers, and ecosystem partners, we can put connectivity and data to work as a lever to build trust. Many of the technical solutions for creating better access to healthcare data are already available. However, the trusted sharing of healthcare data is complicated because of its sensitivity; it must be secure and only used for agreed purposes. As a result, data storage is currently highly fragmented and stored mostly by healthcare professionals, contributing to inefficiencies and poor health outcomes.
We need to regulate the ownership of healthcare data, placing it in the hands of the patients who can mandate a collective to act on their behalf – a data commons. If data is held in a data commons, with clearly established standards and ownership rights, patients and their communities will have more agency, enabling us to transform the way people access, pay for, and experience care.
Tackling access to healthcare
We aim to prove that it’s possible to make meaningful changes to healthcare systems directly and through partnerships. Working in our focus countries – Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania (including Zanzibar), and Kenya – and beyond.
We work towards better outcomes with available resources, for patient groups with significant health burdens. We explore and test alternative models and solutions and demonstrate viability. Once value is created, we work to sustain it through partnerships and by building institutions.
We show primary and secondary care providers how they can improve the healthcare process – diagnosis, treatment, financing, and drug supply – by using patient-centric data analysis for smarter decision-making. We demonstrate that the reuse of data leads to better investments and decision-making, in real time.
Creating what we imagine, together
Our audacious 2029 goal is to spark unprecedented gains in healthcare by connecting patients and professionals. We have set ourselves this goal because we want to make universal healthcare coverage a reality. We do this with our diverse group of partner organizations with deep knowledge of the local context.
PharmAccess acts as implementor for the Health Insurance Fund (HIF), which was established in 2006 to improve access to quality care for low- and middle-income groups. As a complement to the HIF, Investment Funds for Health in Africa (IFHA) are private equity funds dedicated to small to medium size (equity) investments in private healthcare companies in Africa.
With investment from IFHA and others, CarePay is PharmAccess’s preferred partner for rolling out insurance schemes and gathering valuable data. In partnership with PharmAccess, CarePay developed a mobile and cloud-based platform called M-TIBA – a digital connector between insurers, donors, healthcare providers, and individuals.
CarePay has developed a mobile and cloud-based health platform that connects individual members to payers and healthcare providers. Co-founded by PharmAccess and Safaricom in 2015, CarePay increases efficiency, lowers costs, generates actionable data, and builds trust by digitizing and automating the end-to-end health insurance journey. In 2023, CarePay’s platform – better known as M-TIBA in Kenya – connected over 5.7 million people and 5,100 healthcare providers in Kenya and Nigeria, facilitating health transactions worth more than US$100 million. Read more about CarePay’s activities and results in 2023.
The Investment Fund for Health in Africa (IFHA) is dedicated to equity investments in the private healthcare sector in sub-Saharan Africa. IFHA focuses on developing the market for private healthcare and enabling companies to realize their potential. The work is complementary to PharmAccess advocacy efforts to drive public-private engagements in the health sector. Read more about IFHA.
The Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD) pushes the boundaries of global health research, education, and policy. AIGHD contributes to developing a community of global health experts, with a renewed drive for equitable partnerships across the globe. The institute supports the efforts of PharmAccess by validating learnings through independent research, policymaking, and intervention development. It plays an equally crucial role in strengthening the capacity of academia from different fields including economics, medicine, law, and the social sciences. Together, AIGHD and PharmAccess provide tried and tested interventions built on high-quality and interdisciplinary scientific research. You can learn more about AIGHD on their website.
The Joep Lange Institute (JLI) is inspired by the life and work of the late Prof. Joep Lange, a leading HIV scientist, global health thought leader, and innovator. In Joep’s spirit, JLI challenges the status quo with new perspectives and innovative approaches to health. The Institute’s work focuses on using data in health to benefit society, finding inclusive health financing models, and putting people in control of their own health needs. In support of these key agenda areas, JLI seeks partnerships to accelerate innovations, with part of this effort led by its Center for Global Health Diplomacy office in Geneva, Switzerland.
