2014
Financing Access to Healthcare: Design Thinking in Kenya
Founded in 2008 by a veteran Kenyan entrepreneur, Viva Afya ran nine clinics serving working-class neighborhoods in Nairobi. For-profit Valentis sought to expand its health impact beyond its successful clinic for skin health, plastic surgery, and cosmetic medicine, by reaching lower-income segments. Read more
Streamlining pharmacy processes for better delivery of essential medicine
GlobalHealth Lab’s second project with Retreat focused on its pharmacy, where we aimed to help streamline operations to improve the delivery of essential medicine to its patients. The first step was an extensive study tracking the entire process, from patient arrival to dispensing. The team then pinpointed specific opportunities to explore in depth and generated a set of practical ideas they tested on site. Read more
Reducing barriers to appointment-keeping to ensure continuity of care
L V Prasad provides comprehensive and equitable eye health services to tens of thousands patients per year at over 100 locations. Our first project applied a systems lens to the challenge of improving visit efficiency in outpatient eye clinics, by tracking patient flows and queue lengths by time of day, and examining differences across different clinics within the hospital. The team suggested specific steps for improving flows and reducing bottlenecks. Read more
Refining clinic processes to reduce patient wait times
A public facility of the Western Cape Department of Health, Lotus River Clinic serves 13,000 low-income patients per month, including many with chronic diseases, in a Cape Flats neighborhood of Cape Town. Read more
Mapping patient journeys and hospital operations to improve maternal health
In collaboration with IPH, a non-profit that aims to strengthen health systems, the team studied the experience of maternal patients in public hospitals to assess human resource gaps, operational bottlenecks, service alignment, and their effects. The recommendations were designed to improve patient pathways and improve outcomes and experience for pregnant women and babies. Read more
Deploying Telemedicine at G S Memorial Plastic Surgery Hospital
In the second GlobalHealth Lab project with GS Memorial, the team focused on guidelines for telemedicine clinics that could improve patient return rates and manage costs for the private and charity hospital, delving into detailed geo-data on patients and exploring their attitudes towards telemedicine. Read more
Developing a Market Entry Strategy for a rugged anesthesia machine for safer surgeries
Gradian Health Systems is a New York based non-profit start-up whose Universal Anesthesia Machine equips hospitals around the world to deliver anesthesia safely and economically in resource-constrained settings where compressed oxygen or continuous electricity may not be available. The team surveyed the national healthcare landscape, identified potential customers, and refined a comprehensive market entry strategy. An effective approach to scaling up in Zambia could ensure that every machine delivers the maximum benefit to the country. Read more
Exploring new opportunities in healthcare delivery using mobile phones
US-based social enterprise Dimagi’s software improves healthcare for the underserved in 30 developing countries. In studying users in four sites across South Africa, our team aimed to equip Dimagi to shift from providing its technology to enterprise partners to a new approach fueled by end-user demand. A pull model could enable Dimagi to innovate and better respond to community health workers’ needs, creating a virtuous cycle of user-driven technology adoption. Read more
Improving pharmacy and clinic operations so HIV patients can stay on treatment
An early leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS, the Centre for Infectious Disease Research, Zambia is a large non-profit based in Lusaka with links to the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. In partnership with hundreds of Zambia’s public-sector clinics, CIDRZ aims to improve health care for all Zambians through research, training, and public health programs. Read more
Increasing Community Health Worker Income at BRAC
BRAC, the world’s largest development NGO, serves over 100 million people through its health programs. This project aimed to improve business strategy and operational models for its keystone Essential Health Care program to generate demand for its services, enhance operations, and refine marketing strategy. Improving the Essential Health Care program could benefit BRAC’s 55,000 embedded community health workers by raising their income and enable BRAC to address health needs of vulnerable people more effectively and efficiently. Read more
Using mobile technology to improve access to health insurance in Kenya
Established in 2000 as a collaboration of Moi Teaching Hospital and a US academic medical program, AMPATH provides health care for the poor at over 80 health centers in western Kenya. Our project aimed to help the non-profit and its collaborators, which included the public sector, refine the design and attributes of mobile-phone based health insurance for informal sector workers who otherwise have little access to needed hospital services. The team explored pricing options in depth, visiting many rural communities to conduct first-hand research. Read more