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Digital health systems strengthening in Africa for rapid response to COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has painfully exposed the constraints of fragile health systems in low- and middle-income countries, where global containment measures largely set by high-income countries resulted in disproportionate collateral damage. In Africa, a shift is urgently needed from emergency respo...

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Autores principales: Rinke de Wit, Tobias F., Janssens, Wendy, Antwi, Maxwell, Milimo, Emmanuel, Mutegi, Nick, Marwa, Heri, Ndili, Njide, Owino, Wasunna, Waiyaiya, Emma, Garcia Rojas, Diana C., Dolfing, Monique, de Graaff, Aafke, Swanepoel, Ruan, van der Graaf, Mark H., Mulder, Dorien, De Sanctis, Teresa, Kratule, Santa, Koyuncu, Cem, Rogo, Khama, Gómez-Pérez, Gloria P., Spieker, Nicole
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10012758/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36925782
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frhs.2022.987828
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author Rinke de Wit, Tobias F.
Janssens, Wendy
Antwi, Maxwell
Milimo, Emmanuel
Mutegi, Nick
Marwa, Heri
Ndili, Njide
Owino, Wasunna
Waiyaiya, Emma
Garcia Rojas, Diana C.
Dolfing, Monique
de Graaff, Aafke
Swanepoel, Ruan
van der Graaf, Mark H.
Mulder, Dorien
De Sanctis, Teresa
Kratule, Santa
Koyuncu, Cem
Rogo, Khama
Gómez-Pérez, Gloria P.
Spieker, Nicole
author_facet Rinke de Wit, Tobias F.
Janssens, Wendy
Antwi, Maxwell
Milimo, Emmanuel
Mutegi, Nick
Marwa, Heri
Ndili, Njide
Owino, Wasunna
Waiyaiya, Emma
Garcia Rojas, Diana C.
Dolfing, Monique
de Graaff, Aafke
Swanepoel, Ruan
van der Graaf, Mark H.
Mulder, Dorien
De Sanctis, Teresa
Kratule, Santa
Koyuncu, Cem
Rogo, Khama
Gómez-Pérez, Gloria P.
Spieker, Nicole
author_sort Rinke de Wit, Tobias F.
collection PubMed
description The COVID-19 pandemic has painfully exposed the constraints of fragile health systems in low- and middle-income countries, where global containment measures largely set by high-income countries resulted in disproportionate collateral damage. In Africa, a shift is urgently needed from emergency response to structural health systems strengthening efforts, which requires coordinated interventions to increase access, efficiency, quality, transparency, equity, and flexibility of health services. We postulate that rapid digitalization of health interventions is a key way forward to increase resilience of African health systems to epidemic challenges. In this paper we describe how PharmAccess' ongoing digital health system interventions in Africa were rapidly customized to respond to COVID-19. We describe how we developed: a COVID-19 App for healthcare providers used by more than 1,000 healthcare facilities in 15 African countries from May–November 2020; digital loans to support private healthcare providers with USD 20 million disbursed to healthcare facilities impacted by COVID-19 in Kenya; a customized Dutch mobile COVID-19 triage App with 4,500 users in Ghana; digital diaries to track COVID-19 impacts on household expenditures and healthcare utilization; a public-private partnership for real-time assessment of COVID-19 diagnostics in West-Kenya; and an expanded mobile phone-based maternal and child-care bundle to include COVID-19 adapted services. We also discuss the challenges we faced, the lessons learned, the impact of these interventions on the local healthcare system, and the implications of our findings for policy-making. Digital interventions bring efficiency due to their flexibility and timeliness, allowing co-creation, targeting, and rapid policy decisions through bottom-up approaches. COVID-19 digital innovations allowed for cross-pollinating the interests of patients, providers, payers, and policy-makers in challenging times, showing how such approaches can pave the way to universal health coverage and resilient healthcare systems in Africa.
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spelling pubmed-100127582023-03-15 Digital health systems strengthening in Africa for rapid response to COVID-19 Rinke de Wit, Tobias F. Janssens, Wendy Antwi, Maxwell Milimo, Emmanuel Mutegi, Nick Marwa, Heri Ndili, Njide Owino, Wasunna Waiyaiya, Emma Garcia Rojas, Diana C. Dolfing, Monique de Graaff, Aafke Swanepoel, Ruan van der Graaf, Mark H. Mulder, Dorien De Sanctis, Teresa Kratule, Santa Koyuncu, Cem Rogo, Khama Gómez-Pérez, Gloria P. Spieker, Nicole Front Health Serv Health Services The COVID-19 pandemic has painfully exposed the constraints of fragile health systems in low- and middle-income countries, where global containment measures largely set by high-income countries resulted in disproportionate collateral damage. In Africa, a shift is urgently needed from emergency response to structural health systems strengthening efforts, which requires coordinated interventions to increase access, efficiency, quality, transparency, equity, and flexibility of health services. We postulate that rapid digitalization of health interventions is a key way forward to increase resilience of African health systems to epidemic challenges. In this paper we describe how PharmAccess' ongoing digital health system interventions in Africa were rapidly customized to respond to COVID-19. We describe how we developed: a COVID-19 App for healthcare providers used by more than 1,000 healthcare facilities in 15 African countries from May–November 2020; digital loans to support private healthcare providers with USD 20 million disbursed to healthcare facilities impacted by COVID-19 in Kenya; a customized Dutch mobile COVID-19 triage App with 4,500 users in Ghana; digital diaries to track COVID-19 impacts on household expenditures and healthcare utilization; a public-private partnership for real-time assessment of COVID-19 diagnostics in West-Kenya; and an expanded mobile phone-based maternal and child-care bundle to include COVID-19 adapted services. We also discuss the challenges we faced, the lessons learned, the impact of these interventions on the local healthcare system, and the implications of our findings for policy-making. Digital interventions bring efficiency due to their flexibility and timeliness, allowing co-creation, targeting, and rapid policy decisions through bottom-up approaches. COVID-19 digital innovations allowed for cross-pollinating the interests of patients, providers, payers, and policy-makers in challenging times, showing how such approaches can pave the way to universal health coverage and resilient healthcare systems in Africa. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-11-28 /pmc/articles/PMC10012758/ /pubmed/36925782 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frhs.2022.987828 Text en Copyright © 2022 Rinke de Wit, Janssens, Antwi, Milimo, Mutegi, Marwa, Ndili, Owino, Waiyaiya, Garcia Rojas, Dolfing, de Graaff, Swanepoel, van der Graaf, Mulder, De Sanctis, Kratule, Koyuncu, Rogo, Gómez-Pérez and Spieker. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Health Services
Rinke de Wit, Tobias F.
Janssens, Wendy
Antwi, Maxwell
Milimo, Emmanuel
Mutegi, Nick
Marwa, Heri
Ndili, Njide
Owino, Wasunna
Waiyaiya, Emma
Garcia Rojas, Diana C.
Dolfing, Monique
de Graaff, Aafke
Swanepoel, Ruan
van der Graaf, Mark H.
Mulder, Dorien
De Sanctis, Teresa
Kratule, Santa
Koyuncu, Cem
Rogo, Khama
Gómez-Pérez, Gloria P.
Spieker, Nicole
Digital health systems strengthening in Africa for rapid response to COVID-19
title Digital health systems strengthening in Africa for rapid response to COVID-19
title_full Digital health systems strengthening in Africa for rapid response to COVID-19
title_fullStr Digital health systems strengthening in Africa for rapid response to COVID-19
title_full_unstemmed Digital health systems strengthening in Africa for rapid response to COVID-19
title_short Digital health systems strengthening in Africa for rapid response to COVID-19
title_sort digital health systems strengthening in africa for rapid response to covid-19
topic Health Services
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10012758/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36925782
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frhs.2022.987828
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