Description of Session
Universal health coverage is one of the targets under the Sustainable Development Goal 3 with the aim of guaranteeing the right to health and reducing extreme poverty. Achieving UHC means increasing the access to quality health services while providing financial risk protection. In 2018 the Government of Kenya set the target of ensuring all households have access to affordable and quality healthcare by the year 2022. Taking a tax-based approach and starting with four county governments in the pilot phase, the national government sends grants to the counties to pay for health services offered at no cost to the public. This session will discuss the efforts Kenya is making in measuring its progress towards the attainment of universal health coverage (UHC) and the process of developing and rolling out a digital tool, the national dashboard to track UHC program implementation in Kenya and the use of the dashboard to keep its policy makers informed on implementation progress and performance. The first part of the presentation will give a background on the country’s approach to achieving UHC and the consequent selection of measures to track progress. The second part will be a discussion of the key processes used to engage stakeholders and develop the national UHC dashboard at the Ministry of Health and with capabilities for direct application with county departments of health. The presentation will include a discussion on the choice of technology and the contextual issues that were considered to inform its design. In this session, the panel will also discuss the challenges, lessons learnt and other digital health interventions that could contribute to effective monitoring of progress towards universal health coverage.
