TY - JOUR
T1 - A digital mobile health platform increasing efficiency and transparency towards universal health coverage in low- and middle-income countries
AU - Huisman, Liesbeth
AU - van Duijn, Shannen M. C.
AU - Silva, Nuno
AU - van Doeveren, Rianne
AU - Michuki, Jacinta
AU - Kuria, Moses
AU - Otieno Okeyo, David
AU - Okoth, Isaiah
AU - Houben, Nathalie
AU - Rinke de Wit, Tobias F.
AU - Rogo, Khama
N1 - Funding Information: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by The John Martin Foundation, Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, Funding Information: The authors would like to acknowledge the County Government of Kisumu, particularly the Governor's office and everyone from the Department of Health who contributed to enabling the implementation of the UHC pilot project. Thoughtful and critical contribution was provided by the NHIF team in the Kisumu Branch office, as well as CarePay staff, PharmAccess Foundation personnel in Kisumu, in the Kenya office and in the Amsterdam office. Major gratitude is owed to the myriads of people who supported data collection, entry and verification. The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs is gratefully acknowledged for its continuous support to PharmAccess. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by The John Martin Foundation, Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2022.
PY - 2022/4/11
Y1 - 2022/4/11
N2 - In low-and middle-income countries, achieving universal health coverage remains challenging due to insufficient, temporary and fragmented funding as well as limited accessibility to quality healthcare. Leveraging a mobile health platform can be a powerful tool to address these problems. This paper demonstrates how analysing data collected from a mobile health platform helps optimize healthcare provider networks, monitor patient flows and assess the quality and equitability of access to care. The COVID-19 pandemic reinforces the importance of real-time data on health-seeking behaviour. Between 2018 and 2019, as a Kenyan universal health coverage pilot was being planned, Kisumu County, with support from PharmAccess Foundation, implemented household-level digital registration for healthcare and collected socio-economic and healthcare claims data using the M-TIBA platform. In total, 273,350 Kisumu households enrolled. The claims data showed many patients visit higher-level facilities for ailments, that can be treated at primary care levels, unnecessarily. High-level estimate of the disease burden at participating facilities revealed rampant overprescription of pertinent medicines for highly prevalent malaria and respiratory tract infections, exemplifying clinical management deficiencies. M-TIBA data allowed tracking of individual patient trajectories. Analyses of data are shown at the aggregate level. The paper shows how mobile health platforms can be used to generate valuable insights into access to and quality of care. Funding for healthcare can be united through mobile health platforms, limiting the fragmentation in funding. They can be useful for funders, health managers and policymakers to improve the implementation of universal health coverage programs in low-and middle-income countries.
AB - In low-and middle-income countries, achieving universal health coverage remains challenging due to insufficient, temporary and fragmented funding as well as limited accessibility to quality healthcare. Leveraging a mobile health platform can be a powerful tool to address these problems. This paper demonstrates how analysing data collected from a mobile health platform helps optimize healthcare provider networks, monitor patient flows and assess the quality and equitability of access to care. The COVID-19 pandemic reinforces the importance of real-time data on health-seeking behaviour. Between 2018 and 2019, as a Kenyan universal health coverage pilot was being planned, Kisumu County, with support from PharmAccess Foundation, implemented household-level digital registration for healthcare and collected socio-economic and healthcare claims data using the M-TIBA platform. In total, 273,350 Kisumu households enrolled. The claims data showed many patients visit higher-level facilities for ailments, that can be treated at primary care levels, unnecessarily. High-level estimate of the disease burden at participating facilities revealed rampant overprescription of pertinent medicines for highly prevalent malaria and respiratory tract infections, exemplifying clinical management deficiencies. M-TIBA data allowed tracking of individual patient trajectories. Analyses of data are shown at the aggregate level. The paper shows how mobile health platforms can be used to generate valuable insights into access to and quality of care. Funding for healthcare can be united through mobile health platforms, limiting the fragmentation in funding. They can be useful for funders, health managers and policymakers to improve the implementation of universal health coverage programs in low-and middle-income countries.
KW - Kenya
KW - malaria
KW - mobile digital health
KW - respiratory tract infections
KW - universal health coverage
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85128595089&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076221092213
DO - https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076221092213
M3 - Article
C2 - 35433018
SN - 2055-2076
VL - 8
JO - Digital health
JF - Digital health
ER -