PharmAccess is a group of non-profit organizations dedicated to improving access to quality healthcare in Africa. PharmAccess mobilizes public and private resources for the benefit of doctors and patients through clinical standards and quality improvements, loans for healthcare providers, health insurance, mHealth innovations and operational research.
This integrated approach is made possible by the following organizations:
Safaricom has partnered with PharmAccess Foundation and CarePay to introduce a new health payment platform that will deepen the ability of citizens to access healthcare.
Nairobi, Kenya – December 2nd, 2015- Safaricom has partnered with PharmAccess Foundation andCarePay to introduce a new health payment platform that will deepen the ability of citizens to access healthcare.
The ‘M-Tiba’ platform will deliver a mobile ‘health wallet’ that channels funds meant for health services directly to recipients – allowing for effective tracking and monitoring of use of funds.
“We are extending the capability of the mobile phone to make a tangible difference in the way healthcare is delivered in Kenya. M-Tiba will allow services to reach previously inaccessible areas to transform the way healthcare is delivered,” said Bob Collymore, Safaricom CEO.
The service has been on trial for the last nine months at 44 clinics reaching 10,000 beneficiaries.
According to the National Health Accounts report, the total health expenditure for the year 2012/2013 was Kshs.234 billion. Currently, the donor community is responsible for about 30% of all health payments in Kenya and often, donors are not able to track use of the funds that they disburse.
Using M-Tiba, funds will be placed in specialized health wallets through M-Pesa and their use will be restricted to conditional spending at select healthcare providers who form part of a nationwide M-Tiba network. Donors, governments and other funders,will receive real-time access to monitor the use of their funds.
“We are happy to partner with Safaricom to provide this new proposition that will create a situation for donors of full transparency on the use of their funds, reaching their target beneficiaries in a direct, efficient and effective way. We hope that we can convince donors to start using our platform,” said Michiel Slootweg, CEO of Carepay.
The Pfizer Foundation is the first donor partner which will use the M-Tiba platform to reach people in the slums in Nairobi. “More such solutions will be developed with public and private partners. In future, M-Tiba can include public and private health insurers as well, offering micro-insurance products through M-Tiba against very low costs to low-and middle-income groups that couldn’t be reached before,” said Millicent Olulo, Country Director for PharmAccess.
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Read more on mHealth at PharmAccess.
For all press enquiries, please contact:
Kui Kinyanjui MKinyanjui@Safaricom.co.ke , +254 (0)721 676 543
Janet Kimani, jkimani@levanterafrica.com, +254 (0)729 110 546
About Safaricom
Safaricom transforms lives.
We provide voice, data, financial services and enterprise solutions for a range of subscribers, small businesses and government, using a variety of platforms.
As the biggest communication company in East and Central Africa, Safaricom delights over 25.1 million subscribers, providing over 200,000 touch points for its customers and offering over 100 different products under its portfolio.
Listed on the Nairobi Stock Exchange and with annual revenues in excess of Kshs 100 Billion, Safaricom invested Kshs 27.78 billion in infrastructure this year, providing over half of Kenya’s population with 3G coverage and providing 2G coverage to 90% of Kenyans. Safaricom has harnessed its proprietary fibre infrastructure to build a dedicated enterprise business which provides managed IT services to clients in the East African region.
Safaricom pioneered commercial mobile money transfer globally through M-PESA, the most successful service of its kind anywhere in the world. Launched in March 2007, M-PESA now has over 22 million customers and over 85,000 Agent outlets countrywide.
About CarePay
CarePay started as an initiative of PharmAccess and was established in 2015 as an independent Kenyan company. CarePay manages healthcare payments between funders, patients and healthcare providers. It is the developer and administrator of the open CarePool platform on which M-Tiba runs. CarePay has contracted more than 1,800 healthcare facilities across Kenya, with an ambition to connect them to millions of Kenyans to help drive ‘healthcare inclusion.’
About PharmAccess Foundation
PharmAccess established in 2001 is a thought leader in healthcare innovations providing solutions to improve quality, accessibility and affordability of healthcare. PharmAccess increases investment in healthcare through strategic public-private partnerships, and helps to improve the quality of healthcare in Kenya within a network of 800 facilities through its internationally recognized SafeCare quality standards. Furthermore, PharmAccess, together with donors, government and insurers aims to develop innovative products & programs to connect a growing number of lower income groups to better healthcare.
