Countries pursuing universal health coverage (UHC) are increasingly active in seeking to leverage private healthcare providers to enhance their reforms. Many are contracting private providers to deliver subsidized care and/or corporatizing their public facilities in order to improve performance, tackle inefficiencies and stimulate much-needed new investment across the delivery systems. As most soon discover, this requires a very different set of skills to those traditionally developed among public healthcare officials, and a range of technical and cultural gaps become evident.

Ghana has been an active member of the Person-Centered Integrated Care (PCIC) collaborative of JLN–participating in all meetings, as well as hosting the second meeting in Ghana in March 2018 when the key components of the collaborative’s definition of empanelment were identified.
Together, members of the collaborative authored an Empanelment Summary and an Empanelment Assessment Tool. We in Ghana believe that key lessons in improving this tool was made stronger due to the lessons learnt from the Ghanaian health system, particularly the Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) component.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a double shock to Kenya, with both an economic and health crisis. When the first confirmed COVID-19 case was reported, the government provided several directives and instituted measures to contain the spread of the virus, including restricted geographical movement; stay-at-home directives; evening curfews; and various public health measures such as mandatory wearing of masks in public, social distancing, and hand washing and sanitising campaigns. Initially, 2% of the population tested positive, with a majority (85.9%) of these cases being asymptomatic. However, the incidence continued to rise, with urban areas reporting higher rates than rural areas. Like  many other countries, Kenya experienced several waves of infection and the introduction of new variants. Interventions have been guided by WHO guidelines,  adapted to the Kenyan context.

Contributors: Agnes Munyua, Alex Ofori Mensah, Batbayar Ankhbayar, Francis Mensah Asenso Boadi, Humberto Silva, and Pavel Manjos. This blog is produced by the Primary Health Care Financing and Payment Collaborative. […]