LifeNet International
LifeNet International
Not-for-profit
Year launched: 2009Program Website
Country of Operation
Target geography
Target Population
Target income level
- Bottom 20%
- Lower-middle income (20-40%)
Health focus
- Maternal, newborn and child health
- Primary care
CHMI PLUS Status
Profile Completeness Rating
Monitoring & Evaluation Reporting
Summary
LifeNet International's (LN) conversion franchise model includes nurse training, management training, growth financing, and pharmaceutical supply to transform quality of care and increase range of services in primary healthcare facilities in Burundi, Uganda, and the DRC.Program goals
LifeNet aims to double the quality of clinical care at its partner health centers within 24 months of LN partnership. They measure this improvement through the Quality Score Card Assessment, conducted by LifeNet’s Monitoring & Evaluation Professionals who visits each clinic on a quarterly basis. From maternal care to financial statements, they seek to improve every part of their partners’ operations.
Key program components
LN provides family planning, safe motherhood, newborn and pediatric, HIV, TB, STI, malaria, vision, and dental services. The partners and franchisees are part of faith-based organizations acting both in public and private sectors. Its hybrid status enables LN to purchase drugs from their preferred source, host health practitioners from the public sector, have performance-based financing, national insurance program, and mandates such as free care for children under 5 years and pregnant women.
LN is linked to the public sector through referral links between franchisees and local public health facilities, a common accreditation and quality oversight program, and social health insurance remuneration to franchisees.
After much research, LN believes that church-run medical health centers are the most promising segment of the Burundian healthcare system. In each church-run health center, a staff of nurses will treat between 30 and 150 patients per day. Each health center charges for the services and medicines they provide, acting as both a patient health center and a dispensing pharmacy. By collaborating with these health centers and converting them to franchisees, LN significantly increases both the their daily patient count and the quality of patient care. A health center achieves these twin goals of increased capacity and quality by implementing LN’s multi-step franchise program in the four core functions of nurse training, management training, growth financing, and pharmaceutical supply.
Nurse Training: Our approach stresses knowledge transference and local ownership: our medical education experts work closely with local nurse trainers, who then train partner staff on-site once a month. We designed our curriculum for the local context and to align with the priorities of Burundi’s Ministry of Health, as well as the international community’s Millennium Development Goals and Post-2015 Development Agenda. The lesson plan covers best practices for addressing HIV/AIDS, malaria, reproductive health, maternal, neonatal and child health, and more.
Management Training: We train managerial staff at each of our partner health centers in financial management and accounting, pharmacy and human resource management, key data analysis, and planning and budgeting. With these skills, health centers avoid stock-outs, manage debt, and break even or operate at a profit, ensuring their sustainability. Health centers become thriving enterprises that plan for the future and reinvest with their own earnings.
Pharmaceutical Supply: Through our pharmaceutical supply program we link rural partner health centers with local and regional wholesalers and deliver medicines directly to clinics.
Growth Financing: Filling a gap in local capital markets, our growth financing loan program increases the scope of services health centers offer and the revenue they generate. Our rent-to-own program connects centers with essential equipment.
Scale
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Monitoring and Evaluation: CHMI Plus Gold Programs
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