The maternity episode of care (EOC), which begins with antenatal visits, includes delivery and postpartum care, and ends in postnatal consultation, is one of the more challenging conditions for providing comprehensive health coverage, especially for governments seeking to engage private providers through public financing. Governments and other payers in low resource settings are seeking straightforward, proven tools and approaches to engage the private sector in the delivery of quality maternal and newborn health services, while reducing costs, errors and delays. 

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We Asked: How might we disrupt traditional approaches for contracting private providers with public financing to deliver quality service for pregnant women in low resource settings? 

USE CASE:

Engage Liberia's private providers in effort to reduce maternal mortality

In 2013, Liberia began to articulate its vision for advancing universal health coverage through the Liberia Health Equity Fund (LHEF). During the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in 2014-2015, plans for the LHEF were put on hold; however, the crisis reaffirmed the need to engage the private sector as a critical component in building a resilient health ecosystem. The Liberia Ebola Investment Plan for 2015 – 2021 states that “particular attention will be paid to government’s role in regulating the private sector health facilities to ensure quality standards are met” and calls for a “focus on joint identification of the priorities that the private sector is best placed to support, agreement on collaboration modalities and clear performance frameworks.” 

In June 2016, the Liberian Minister of Health declared maternal mortality the next public health emergency facing Liberians. Given persistently high maternal mortality rates, Liberia must leverage resources across the entire health ecosystem to achieve rapid results. Yet, too few tools for engaging private healthcare providers are readily available to the Government of Liberia and the LHEF is still years from being operational. 

A SOLUTION:

Co-designing a Maternal Episode of Care Application

We are pleased to be partnering with D-tree International and Results for Development to co-design a Maternal Episode of Care (EOC) application that streamlines and automates patient, provider and payer transactions across the maternal and newborn EOC–defined as 40 weeks prior to and 60 days following delivery. The goal of the approach is to reduce the financial barriers for poor women who want to access quality maternal and neonatal care from the private sector, without requiring payers to invest in complex, time consuming and costly administrative systems. Our plan is to develop, build and test the prototype in collaboration with Liberian stakeholders.