HealthStore franchisees are trained health care workers who operate small “CFW” drug shops strategically located to improve access to essential drugs in underserved areas of Kenya. The HealthStore Foundation provides a common brand and logistics network, offers professional development and training, and enforces compliance with rules and regulations through regular monitoring. These CFW outlets target the most common killer diseases including malaria, respiratory infections, and dysentery among others, and also provide health education and prevention services.
HealthStore's customers are primarily lower or middle-income women and children subsisting on agriculture, although people of all ages and incomes are treated. CFW outlets are located at market centers in agricultural areas of approximately 5,000 people.
The essential components of the HealthStore Foundation's CFW model include:
- A system of franchise rules and strict treatment standards that govern how the outlets are run and what drugs can be sold.
- A thorough training program that ensures every operator knows how to diagnose the target conditions and accurately prescribe the correct medicines. Base training is backed up with continuing education on clinical skills and management practices.
- A centralized procurement operation that drives down drug costs and ensures drug quality by qualifying all the medicines, buying only from reputable suppliers, and maintaining quality standards throughout the supply chain.
- A record keeping regime that compiles patient records and vital health statistics, as well as financial performance statistics for each CFW outlet.
- A consistent monitoring program that makes sure every outlet is operating to CFW brand standards.
CFW is now in Rwanda, where they have signed a unique Public Private Partnership (PPP) with the Ministry of Health in Rwanda, an agreement renewed and revised in April 2012. In this formal PPP, private, franchised CFW clinics function as the entry level into the formal public health system known as "Health Posts". CFW Health Posts act as filters before referring people up to the next level which are “Health Centers” funded by Rwanda’s prevalent mutuelles de santé (prevalent community-based health insurance schemes). Thirty CFW Health Posts are now open for business in Rwanda.
Since March 2012, through One Family Health (an offshoot of The HealthStore Foundaiton), CFW is planning on establishing a network clinics providing healthcare services to the poor in rural, slum, and periurban areas of Zambia. The
clinics will target a short list of the main diseases causing approximately 70% of illness and 40% of death in subSaharan Africa including respiratory infections, malaria and dysentery.
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