CHMI Announces the Learn and Launch Program Cohort!

Last month, the Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI) invited programs to submit an application to participate in Learn and Launch, CHMI’s newest peer-to-peer learning initiative designed to address practical challenges that prevent programs from reaching more people with quality care.

We are delighted to announce that nine programs have been selected to participate in Learn and Launch, which CHMI is conducting in partnership with the Africa Capacity Alliance (Nairobi, Kenya) and ACCESS Health International (Hyderabad, India). From November 2015 to February 2016, the nine programs will participate in two regional collaboratives, where they will brainstorm, share and test practices that will help them tackle a specific operational roadblock impeding their organization’s growth and scale.

The Roadblock—How do you reach “hard to reach” patients with quality, affordable care?

Patients living in rural areas, those with low health education levels, and bottom of the pyramid populations are all in need of quality services, but reaching these patients is a huge challenge. In a recent survey administered to our network, many programs listed marketing and demand creation for rural and bottom of the pyramid patients as a key operational roadblock. In the Learn and Launch collaboratives, participating programs will learn from experts in the field and one another as they develop new strategies to build their brand awareness, reach new populations with health education programming, strengthen the link between diagnostics and treatment, and increase uptake of preventative and primary care services.  They will test these new strategies together, sharing what they have learned with other programs in the CHMI community.  

Please join us in congratulating the 2015-2016 Learn and Launch cohort!

South Asia Collaborative Members

1. iKure is creating an integrated network of rural health centers to provide affordable quality healthcare in close proximity to underserved rural populations of India.
2. Lifecircle Senior Services provides subscription-based home nursing services to senior citizens in India.
3. AYZH develops and distributes low-cost appropriate technology designed to meet the unique needs of women in low-resource settings.
4. Swasth is a network of self-sustaining health centers located in slums that provides quality & affordable primary healthcare services to India's urban poor. 
5. DoctHERS is a novel healthcare marketplace that connects female doctors to millions of under-served patients in real-time while leveraging online technology. 

Sub-Saharan Africa Collaborative Members

1. Totohealth is a social enterprise in Kenya leveraging mobile technology platforms to effectively monitor and deliver access to quality maternal and child health services and information.
2. PACE is a network organizations affiliated with PSI that serves as a significant contributor to Uganda Ministry of Health's priority health areas including, but not limited to, HIV/AIDS, child health and reproductive health.
3. Mobicure is a company that created this mobile app (OMOMI) that consists of an SMS service, which enables mothers and expectant mothers to monitor their children's health, as well as provides access to relevant maternal and child health information.
4. Purple Source healthcare (Nigeria) is a healthcare organization with a mission to create sustainable, scalable healthcare solutions for the mass market and focusing more specifically in maternal and child health.

Over the next few months, we will regularly document key activities and learnings from Learn and Launch. Please be sure to follow our blog in order to stay up-to-date with the latest news and updates from our participating programs. Contact Cynthia Charchi at ccharchi@r4d.org with any questions or comments regarding Learn and Launch.

Photo: Swasth Clinics