In Zanzibar, healthcare services are fully subsidized by the government. As a result of an under-performing economy, healthcare is suffering from a chronic underfunding resulting into an unsatisfactory quality and poor health outcomes.
As a response, the government is working with several partners to review the health financing strategy and improve quality of care as it strives to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
PharmAccess has provided technical assistance for the Zanzibar Government’s 5-years insurance plan to re-design the financing strategy of the current healthcare system and implement a digital model for quality improvement.
The project was working towards three objectives:
1.Provide a digital stepwise quality improvement model (SafeCare Steps), supporting facilities in improving quality care provision, collecting data as well as patient SMS feedback to rationalize planning, resource mobilization and strengthen coordination.
2.Introduce and support the implementation of an open Insurance Management Information System (Open IMIS) to create transparency, identify wastages, enhance efficiency and equitable access to healthcare.
3.Use the data generated from the above activities to support the government to develop its strategic health financing plan, with a focus on UHC.
The project supported the Ministry of Health (MoH) to adopt, configure, customize and deploy the Open IMIS system for enrolment of citizens, assess the social-economic status of enrolled households, and capture service utilization data when an enrolled individual visits a connected health facility to seek services.
PharmAccess introduced and deployed a digital quality improvement model in 64 health facilities from all eleven districts of Zanzibar and supported MoH to align the SafeCare standards with the approved best practices for healthcare service.
