Listen The Health Informatics Governance and Data Analytics (HIGDA) is a five-year project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and mandated to support the Kenyan Government’s health sector, as well as strengthen national and county organisational and management capacity in governance, health informatics, data analytics, monitoring, evaluation, learning and accountability. Through […]
Leveraging Innovation and Technology
NHIF leads in digitising registration requirements
Listen Kenya is known for its long queues. There is a common joke that in Kenya, you work hard for your money then have to queue even harder to access it at your local bank branch. People even have to queue at ATMs, which were designed to solve the queueing problem in bank halls in […]
KEMSA’s online and eMobile drug purchase programme
Listen In a public-private partnership with mHealth Kenya, the government’s medical supplies agency, the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA) digitised its logistics services. mHealth, a software development enterprise for service delivery companies, developed a mobile and web-based system that is integrated to the Logistics Management Information System (LMIS). The KEMSA eMobile/LMIS system is a commodity […]
Kenya master health facility list
Listen The Ministry of Health has an online application that lists all health facilities in geo-coded locations, namely the Kenya Master Health Facility List (KMHFL). According to WHO, a master facility list (MFL) is a single, centrally maintained database of health facilities with a unique code for each facility and includes information on hours of […]
Emergency medical care goes tech
Listen What would you do if you were with someone who suddenly collapses due to a heart attack or other ailment, or if you or a close relative, friend, colleague or family is involved in an accident? What would you do, knowing that they need immediate medical attention, but have no idea where to rush […]
Other innovative measures that are improving health outcomes, and which can be scaled to achieve UHC
Listen Human milk bank Every second around the world, a baby dies. In a year, about one million babies out of 15 million born prematurely, die. In Kenya, according to WHO, an estimated 196,000 babies are born prematurely, while eight percent are of low weight – less than 2.5 kilogrammes. This is according to the […]
Selected counties and digital technology use to achieve UHC
Listen Laikipia Health is the largest devolved sector in Kenya, following the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution. In a study titled Challenges of the Devolved Health Sector in Kenya: Teething Problems or Systemic Contradictions?, Leah Kimathi of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology observed that the rationale for devolving the sector was to allow […]
Telemedicine: Where patients in ‘forgotten places’ are receiving five-star care virtually
Listen “Indeed, connectivity, in one form or another, has been a necessary component of medical care delivery throughout history. Telemedicine provided the tools for connectivity when providers and recipients of care could not be in the same place and time.” – Bashshur and Shannon, ‘History of Telemedicine.’ Telemedicine is the remote use of telecommunications technology […]
What human poop, a techie billionaire and clean water have in common
Listen In early 2015, billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates aroused the global media’s curiosity when he coolly sipped water made from human faeces. He said tests were ongoing to begin poop processing plants around the world. Three years later, on November 2018, Mr Gates hit the stage at the Shanghai Reinvented Toilet […]
Leveraging innovation and technology to deliver Universal Health Coverage and achieve the highest level of wellbeing
Listen “My Government is geared towards basic primary healthcare services and finding ways of integrating cost-effective technological advances in providing care, even at the lowest level possible.”- President Uhuru Kenyatta at the 74th United Nations General Assembly, New York, on September 24, 2019. In the forward to the Kenya National eHealth Policy 2016-2030, then Cabinet […]