New on the CHMI Blog: Database at a Glance
Innovative delivery programs: What areas of health do they focus on?
Editor’s Note: Starting this month, we will begin presenting cross-sections of the database on the CHMI Blog to underscore trends our programs database is uncovering in countries where the private sector delivers the majority of health care.
Organizing Delivery programs: What areas of health do they focus on?
In examining trends within the CHMI Programs database, many people are curious about how particular health services are being delivered. Take family planning. How do innovative health programs deliver contraceptive services? Or primary care: Given that primary care is sorely neglected in many settings, what kinds of private sector programs are filling the void, providing essential services without impoverishing the poor? Data from more than 800 programs in 109 countries are beginning to answer these questions.
Of 303 programs categorized as Organizing Delivery (see the full CHMI Framework), social franchises, networks of clinics, and standalone hospitals emerge as common types of innovative delivery models.
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Social franchising stands out as the prevailing method of delivering family planning services. This mechanism has proliferated in recent years, with more than 30 franchises operating across the world (read more about social franchising here). Many franchises are starting to expand beyond family planning and reproductive health, leveraging their platforms to deliver TB, HIV/AIDS and malaria interventions. It is also interesting to observe that while tertiary care facilities and specialty centers continue to provide treatment for chronic diseases, franchises are also starting to emerge as a potential service delivery mechanism for prevention, screening and ongoing monitoring.
Service delivery networks tend to dominate care provision for maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH), HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and general primary care.
Hospital chains and standalone facilities are growing in numbers for specialty services, like eye care (Eye-Q), maternal deliveries (LifeSpring), and dentistry (Sorridents).
But there is also an emergence of low-cost primary care chains and networks in rural and semi-urban settings. Some are funded by donors, like Kriti, while others are for-profit enterprises, like LiveWell, Vaatsalya, and CARE Hospitals which make their services affordable by cross-subsidizing between wealthier patients and the poor. Several new primary care chains are starting up in different parts of the world including Saúde 10 in Brazil, CommHealth in South Africa and Glocal Healthcare in India.
Stay tuned for more interesting insights from Inside the Database!
Want to do your own analysis or data mashing? You can download the CHMI programs database to create your own data manipulation. Download the entire database by clicking on the Download button on the Programs page. Or extract a sub-section of the database into Excel (such as TB programs) by clicking the Download button at the top right-hand side of the page in any browse view.