After much research, LN believes that private medical clinics, owned by local entrepreneurs and churches, are the most promising segment of the Burundian healthcare system. In each entrepreneur-led clinic, a staff of nurses will treat between 30 and 150 patients per day. Each clinic charges for the services and medicines they provide, acting as both a patient clinic and a dispensing pharmacy. By collaborating with these clinics and converting them to franchisees, LN will significantly increase both the clinics’ daily patient count and the quality of patient care. A clinic achieves these twin goals of increased capacity and quality by implementing LN’s multi-step franchise program in the five core functions of nurse training, growth financing, pharmaceutical supply, business training and marketing.
Nurse Training: Exclusive mobile nursing and aftercare training to help grow the clinic’s reach • Pharmaceutical best practices • Continuing education for clinic consults
Growth Financing: Interest-bearing loans of $2,500 USD - $25,000 USD to aid clinic owner in expansion or improvement of clinic facilities or equipment • Favorable interest rates and loan terms
Pharmaceutical Supply: Exclusive access to importation and distribution of medical supplies • High-quality generic medicines at competitive prices • Inventory optimization
Business Training: • Operations benchmarking to increase clinic performance • Sharing of best practices for the benefit of the clinic entrepreneur • Monthly financial management
Marketing: • Professional branding through exterior and interior signage • Customer retention and attraction through LN brand recognition
Currently operating in Burundi, Africa, LN aims to address the “last mile” distribution challenges by providing private clinics with a market-driven incentive to perform well and grow their territory, thereby creating jobs, saving lives and increasing the standard of living for a vast number of Africa’s poor.
Quality assurance and performance monitoring methods include performance benchmarking, regular clinical assessment visits (4 per year) and in-person medical training tests (12 per year) to ensure learning. LN uses the findings from these assessments to fill out an overall score card for quality. Furthermore, LN plans to incorporate additional key performance indicators in the future to evaluate progress. In 2013, LN plans to continue improvement of currently offered services and to launch an equipment loans project along with pharmacy inventory financing.