Study Findings on Health and Medicine Detailed by Researchers at PharmAccess Foundation (A digital mobile health platform increasing efficiency and transparency towards universal health coverage in low- and middle-income countries): Health and Medicine

2022 APR 26 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A new study on agriculture is now available. According to news reporting out of Amsterdam, Netherlands, by NewsRx editors, research stated, “In low-and middle-income countries, achieving universal health coverage remains challenging due to insufficient, temporary and fragmented funding as well as limited accessibility to quality healthcare. Leveraging a mobile health platform can be a powerful tool to address these problems.”

Financial supporters for this research include The John Martin Foundation Award: Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken Funder DOI: 10.13039/501100007729 Award:.

Our news reporters obtained a quote from the research from PharmAccess Foundation: “This paper demonstrates how analysing data collected from a mobile health platform helps optimize healthcare provider networks, monitor patient flows and assess the quality and equitability of access to care. The COVID-19 pandemic reinforces the importance of real-time data on health-seeking behaviour. Between 2018 and 2019, as a Kenyan universal health coverage pilot was being planned, Kisumu County, with support from PharmAccess Foundation, implemented household-level digital registration for healthcare and collected socio-economic and healthcare claims data using the M-TIBA platform. In total, 273,350 Kisumu households enrolled. The claims data showed many patients visit higher-level facilities for ailments, that can be treated at primary care levels, unnecessarily. High-level estimate of the disease burden at participating facilities revealed rampant overprescription of pertinent medicines for highly prevalent malaria and respiratory tract infections, exemplifying clinical management deficiencies. M-TIBA data allowed tracking of individual patient trajectories. Analyses of data are shown at the aggregate level. The paper shows how mobile health platforms can be used to generate valuable insights into access to and quality of care.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Funding for healthcare can be united through mobile health platforms, limiting the fragmentation in funding. They can be useful for funders, health managers and policymakers to improve the implementation of universal health coverage programs in low-and middle-income countries.”

For more information on this research see: A digital mobile health platform increasing efficiency and transparency towards universal health coverage in low- and middle-income countries. Digital Health, 2022,8. (Digital Health - http://dhj.sagepub.com/). The publisher for Digital Health is SAGE Publishing.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076221092213.

Our news journalists report that more information may be obtained by contacting Liesbeth Huisman, PharmAccess Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Additional authors for this research include Shannen MC van Duijn, Nuno Silva, Rianne van Doeveren, Jacinta Michuki, Moses Kuria, David Otieno Okeyo, Isaiah Okoth, Nathalie Houben, Tobias F Rinke de Wit, Khama Rogo.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)