Four Innovative Health Programs Honored as the Top Galing Likha-Kalusugan Awardees
Celebrating Filipino ingenuity and inventiveness in the healthcare sector, the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) launched the first Galing Likha-Kalusugan Awards (GLK) on November 7, 2011. The event was attended by top health experts in the country led by Hon. Enrique T. Ona, Secretary of the Department of Health. Ms. Corazon Aurora “Pinky” Aquino-Abellada also graced the event to represent the President.
The Galing Likha-Kalusugan (GLK) Award is a distinction given to public and private organizations that best exemplify the highest level of innovation in the country’s health marketplace. GLK prides itself to be the first and only award that specifically honors groundbreaking and promising health programs and initiatives that have significantly solved a particular problem plaguing the country’s healthcare system. As such, GLK hopes to be the stamp for excellence and innovation in the field of healthcare delivery, finance, facilitation, regulation, and promotion. In addition, it hopes to promote and encourage creative and fresh approaches in uplifting our countrymen’s health.
GLK is a joint initiative of PIDS and the Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI), an international organization devoted to identifying and replicating innovative health programs around the world. For its first year, CHMI in the Philippines identified and documented 117 innovative health programs. And through a meticulous screening process conducted by the PIDS and several esteemed health experts, twenty (20) of these programs were shortlisted for the award. Of these programs, four (4) emerged truly outstanding in concept, implementation, and impact and were honored and recognized as the top recipients of the first Galing Likha-Kalusugan Awards. These programs are the Community Health Information Tracking System, the Tarlac Wireless Access for Health, the Generics Pharmacy Franchising Corp., and the Hemodialysis Center at the National Kidney Transplant Institute.
Winners of the First Galing Likha-Kalusugan Awards: Community Health Information Tracking System (top left), The Generics Pharmacy Franchising Corp. (top right), National Kidney Transplant Institute (bottom left), and the Tarlac Wireless Access for Health (bottom right).
The Community Health Information Tracking System (CHITS) is an open-source electronic health information system developed by the University of the Philippines-National Telehealth Center (UP-NThC). Its new electronic system has efficiently combined clinic appointment, patient record keeping, and service-delivery modules of national health programs, thereby improving the performance of health clinics and replacing the old paper-based system in documenting medical records.
The Tarlac Wireless Access for Health (WAH) is one of the pioneering information technology systems that has been extensively and successfully used in a local government unit for gathering critical health service data. WAH is particularly lauded for its effort to successfully bring together local government units, telecommunications companies, national and local academic institutions. WAH is a joint collaboration of the Department of Health, the Center for Health Development-Region III, the UP-NTC and the USAID.
The Generics Pharmacy Franchising Corp. is a groundbreaking drug retail distribution and the largest of its kind in the Philippines. It is being recognized for its successful business model worth replicating in the developing world. The Generics Pharmacy has demonstrated that “a for-profit” business can achieve the social goal of bringing affordable medicines to poor Filipinos.
The National Kidney Transplant Institute’s Hemodialysis Center is a pioneering public-private partnership (PPP) in health infrastructure and is one of the earliest of its kind in the developing world. It is recognized for being an outstanding model of PPP by successfully bringing together the complementary strengths of the government and the private sector in order to achieve the social goal of alleviating the pain of Filipinos suffering from end-stage renal disease.
With the success of the first GLK Awards, PIDS vows to continue its search and recognition of innovative health programs in the country. In line with the global thrust for universal healthcare and the promotion and encouragement of creative and fresh approaches and solutions to the country’s healthcare problems, the PIDS and its partner, the CHMI, thereby hopes to create a healthier and better nation.