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Innovation can help drive universal health coverage

Tuesday, July 24, 2018 — updated on December 27, 2020 - 4 min read

The high cost of healthcare in Kenya is attributable to small business volumes. FILE PHOTO | NMG

The explosive global development of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) continues to transform even the most menial of our daily tasks.

Take for example the impact of big data transmitted in large volumes from our smart devices such as mobile phones, TVs, cars, wearables and more. Closer home, Kenya’s burgeoning ICT sector continues to dominate in the region and is well recognised globally as being at the epicenter of innovation.

This is because the pharmaceutical markets in Kenya and in 12 other leading economies in Africa realized strong growth over the past years and are poised to grow by up to 12 per cent annually and reach about 60 billion US dollars in valuation by 2020.With this in mind, the steep price build up in the pharmaceutical products in Kenya implies that indeed health innovations, especially those that aim to enhance efficiency in supply chain management, are yet to achieve tangible impact and reduce the cost of healthcare in Kenya.This is not to say that innovation and technology have had absolutely no impact but rather that more could be done given the resources and the opportunities at hand. On July 27, 2018, the Health Exchange (HealthX) dialogue platform for industry (including SMEs and startups), public sector and policy makers, civil society and academia hosted by E&K Consulting Firm in partnership with Strathmore Business School will delve deeper into this topic to understand where innovations in health are having an impact and where it is pure hype as well as what actors can do to support the ecosystem and scale these innovations to realize the impact.