In a two-week trip across India from October 18 to November 1, team members from R4D’s Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI) met more than two dozen implementers of innovative health models to learn about their approach and how they can be best supported. CHMI highlights opportunities to improve the quality and affordability of health for the poor in countries where the private sector is vast and many health payments are made out of pocket. With the goal of improving health and financial protection for the poor, CHMI recently launched a web platform to identify and analyze emerging program models that use economic levers to improve the health marketplace.

Click here to read the CHMI blog post featured in today's Global Health Council's blog.

Convening New Partners in Hyderabad

After spending time in India’s north, the CHMI team came to Hyderabad, India to convene eight new CHMI partner organizations. CHMI is working to identify and analyze health market innovations programs and policies—implemented by governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), social entrepreneurs or private companies—that have the potential to improve the way health markets operate. Among the many observations the team made on the trip, Gina Lagomarsino, R4D Managing Director noted, “it is becoming evident that India’s health marketplace can be a source of creative new approaches with the potential to achieve better quality, greater efficiencies, and increased access to care for underserved populations.”

Health market experts—like Oscar Picazo, who served recently as a senior economist for the World Bank in Africa and now works at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies — CHMI’s partner organizations will canvas 16 countries including Brazil, Indonesia, Kenya, and Pakistan, for innovations in the way consumers access and pay for health services.

Other notable meetings included a CHMI-India meeting convened by ACCESS Health International, CHMI’s India hub. More than 45 program implementers, funders, and other stakeholders met to set priorities for CHMI in the areas of external and internal capacity building, attracting social investors and facilitating government contracting. Additionally, ACCESS convened a group of researchers and programs implementers who are studying the challenges and potential of the large numbers of informal providers that are a first point of care in many developing countries.

Visits to Innovative Programs

Throughout the trip, the CHMI team conducted site visits with a number of program implementers. Visionary engineers are producing remote diagnostic kits to supply to rural kiosks. Manned by locals, kiosks are a convenient place for a farmer to come to check out his persistent stomach pains, connecting via broadband video conferencing with urban doctors. One promising program on the verge of scaling up to serve rural people in Bihar, a state formerly considered lawless and desperately poor, is World Health Partners.

In the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, a progressive government has initiated health insurance program for the poor, Aarogyasri, and several successful public-private partnerships including a call center for health advice (dial 104) and an emergency transportation system (dial 108). After being incubated in Andhra Pradesh, other states have purchased contracts with these private companies—108 is now dispatching ambulances in nine states across India.

The Nice Foundation, a neonatal hospital in Hyderabad features the same life-saving equipment that can be found in a top international hospital. The high-quality of the hospital is maintained by, capital investments funded by local corporate contributions. Low income tribal populations are among underserved populations who can access the facility thanks to the state’s Aarogyasri health insurance program.
Click to read more information about the Center for Health Market Innovation’s new partners and expanded reach visit.

Visit the Center for Health Market Innovations on Facebook to see photos from EMRI, the Nice Foundation, and other sites the team visited in India.