SPEECH AT THE INAUGURAL ANNUAL FOCUS ON THE PATIENT EVENT AT RADISSON BLU ON WEDNESDAY 13^TH FEBRUARY 2019 12PM TO 5PM

Ladies & Gentlemen,

The health aspirations of Africa as outlined in AU Agenda 2063 are that African people will have a high standard of living and quality of life, sound health and well-being. H.E. President Uhuru Kenyatta has aligned with this and has been championing the universal healthcare coverage as a pillar of the Big4 Agenda.

However, with less than 40 months to elections, we are not sure whether affordable healthcare will be a major focus in the next political establishment.

A pertinent question for us therefore is: Who will ensure that UHC gains traction in the next four years? And more importantly, who shall subsequently ensure that gains made are sustained for posterity?

The answer has to be the healthcare professionals, the patient and the investors in healthcare. Even though the latter have exit strategies, they have vested interest to see a return on their investment which comes from good customer focus.

Ultimately, Kenyans need access to motivated, equipped & networked health professionals, affordable products & services in order to lead healthy & productive lives, for the economy to grow and for poverty to be reined in. Therefore, it is time the patient, healthcare workers, development partners, & investors in health collaborated along systems, structures & data to make universal healthcare a reality

Ladies & Gentlemen,

As the Pharmaceutical Society of Kenya, we strongly hold that for healthcare to work, we must take a long term view of our interventions. We must adopt a phased out approach anchored on collaboration and sharing of information, & experiences across disciplines and sectors. We must maintain& improve quality & professional performance standards and finally start appreciating the patient as someone with needs for quality care that will treat and prevent disease & complications, is available whenever they need it and is transparent in cost & selection.

In short, the responsibility is on the professionals, the patients and healthcare investors to work together to support the government since it’s in our sphere of influence to define our vision, collaborate, implement, document, review, improve & support government policies.

Ladies & Gentlemen,

Today in this event, the Pharmaceutical Society of Kenya is launching the Green Cross Network – a model of maintaining & improving quality & professional standards of patient care through collaboration by sharing information, experiences & knowledge to meet and exceed the patient’s needs.

This is the beginning of a new journey, in a shifting market that is asking for more value from the healthcare value chain. As PSK, we are urging you to join us in rethinking the model of healthcare from transactional-based to outcome-based.

The vision is akin to when Henry Ford in 1903 created a whole new mode of travel from horse-drawn carriages to the motor vehicle or when Thomas Edison in 1878 invented the light bulb ushering us out of the candles & paraffin era.

Similarly, we are taking the continuum of care from being sales -driven to being value -based, adopting the lessons from success in the HIV AIDS Programme (by MoH & Development Partners) through innovation as follows:

1. Standardisation of Care & Collaboration: The Green Cross Network which is a model of setting, maintaining & improving quality & professional standards of patient care through collaboration, group purchase & group practice. This network will be taking responsibility for the healthcare of households through an ‘Adopt a Family Pharmacy’ community-based initiative as a window to the continuum of care. We will be painting the country green.

1. Learnings & Knowledge Sharing: The Green Cross University, a training platform of equipping healthcare workers with a ‘winning with the patient & collaboration’ mind-set (it is what we are calling the the Green Cross Way) & technical competencies. The GCU will ensure that the healthcare workers are accessing continuous development opportunities to meet the needs of patients and gaps in care.  

1. Information Flow: The Green Cross electronic Hospital Management Information System (eHMIS), a cloud based mobile & PC platform for identifying patients, sharing information, experiences & knowledge to meet and exceed the patient’s needs. It is integrated with SMART, which is a provider of biometric (fingerprint) reader & SMART Card services to biometrically verify the identity of users and manage utilization of the users of over 20 Medical Benefits & Insurance Services Providers from over 2,500 healthcare providers. With this platform, patients will uniquely be identified, their records moving with them electronically, diseases & medication coded, care standardised & personalised across the continuum. Hospital/Pharmacy owners, HCWs as well as policy makers will have needs-based access to a Green Cross Dashboard that gives indicators at a glance in order to effectively direct resources & action.

1. Indicators for Measuring Success: And for the first time in Kenya, moving us from the transactional age of incentivising HCWs based on dispensing & sales indicators into the outcomes-based age where we use comprehensive Pharmaceutical Care & Services Indicators to incentivise HCWs. These new indicators will help us for the first time, to track, account & improve on structures for meeting & exceeding patient medicine related needs. This means that the medicine & care selected is treating & preventing disease and complications; is cost effective and that the patient is living a good quality of life while on medication)

Ladies & Gentlemen,

Apart from the Green Cross launch, we have this event, The Focus on the Patient Lunch, as a platform where we can annually come forth as healthcare actors, review progress, show impact of previous years, reflect, celebrate and launch initiatives for the next year.

This year, we have different speakers to stir us up, direct us to the tools that will position us well for this new reality where healthcare workers are proactively making do with what we already have, documenting our impact & improving on outcomes.

We shall have conversations around customer service, understanding oneself as a healthcare leader, leading oneself to be able to lead; reflect on governance and accountability tools & systems, business systems and strategy that then makes us Win with the Patient. Finally, we shall be responding to a call to action to move from the transactional era into the era of tracking & accounting for desired patient outcomes. 

Call to Action:

We are requesting our peers to enrol into the Green Cross Network – and move yourself into the new age of meeting and exceeding patient expectations.  www.greencross.co.ke

Asanteni sana & see you Thursday 13th Feb 2020

Dr. Louis S. Machogu