Digitize Community Health Systems to Achieve Universal Health Coverage
Digitally empowered community healthcare workers enable countries to deliver quality health care to underserved communities and increase healthcare access across low- and middle-income countries. If countries are to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) targets by 2030, they need to digitally transform their community healthcare facilities and systems and empower health care professionals with the tools they need to succeed.
Unlock Aid had the pleasure to speak with Mohini Bhavsar, the global head of digital health partnerships at Living Goods. We learned more about their moonshot proposal to equip community health workers with more innovative software solutions to strengthen health systems and achieve UHC. Their initiative would contribute to achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3: to promote healthy lives and well-being for all.
“If we are to achieve 2030 Universal Health Coverage (UHC) targets, we need to develop a standard tool kit that governments can use to digitally transform their community health systems.”
~ Mohini Bhavsar, Living Goods
UA: What inspired your moonshot idea?
LG: We are inspired by the opportunity to make a shift in limited digital health funding at the community health level from siloed or redundant efforts to funding critical activities that help sustain the use and institutionalization of fundamental CHW tools for long term impact.
With donors and governments both increasing their interest in digital transformation, the toolkit we are developing, in consultation with key stakeholders, will ensure a more cost effective and efficient way to establish impactful, far reaching health systems for numerous communities.
UA: What Sustainable Development Goal(s) are you championing?
LG: SDGs: 3, 5 and 17, with a focus on SDG 3; good health and wellbeing. Supporting Community Health Workers (CHWs) to deliver high quality, life-saving care is essential for governments to address health inequities and reach those that are underserved at the last mile. Enabling CHWs with a digital job aid is a critical catalyst towards achieving universal health care.
Governments and donors alike are beginning to realize the transformational impact of digitizing community health workforces. However, without standardized, guiding resources, digitally enabled community health programs are forced to start from scratch rather than leveraging learning from exemplar programs. Governments end up over-spending on building minimum viable digital products when there are resources that have already been built and tested by others. In the broken way digital health is funded today, we are often paying to build similar digital solutions in new geographies again and again.
If we are to achieve 2030 Universal Health Coverage (UHC) targets, we need to develop a standard tool kit that governments can use to digitally transform their community health systems, with broader recognition towards empowering CHWs being the central way that a health system can achieve UHC in emergent nations.
“If we plan to accelerate digital health transformation at the community level, we need to find more cost effective and faster ways to innovate.”
UA: What impact do you hope to make?
LG: We hope to accelerate the adoption of evidence-based digital health solutions at the community health level to support the pathway to professionalize CHWs. This will save both money and time for the government and donors so that funding can be redirected towards supporting the provision of care in communities – enabling more people to get the care they need sooner.
UA: Looking ahead to next year, what are you hopeful about?
LG: Taking a collaborative, endorsed process that brings innovators and experts in the community health space together to build a blueprint for an ideal, evidence-based CHW digital job aid that can be used and adapted in multiple geographies by any technology platform.
Link to full step-by-step moonshot policy proposal coming soon.