• Home
• What We Do
• Where We Work
• Resources
• News
• Data
• About

Kenya

HIV/AIDS

With the scale up of HIV/AIDS programs, health care facilities now need to strengthen their patient tracking for HIV/AIDS services such as antiretroviral therapy (ART), prevention of mother-to-child transmission, and voluntary counseling and testing. ARTIS was designed to track individual patients receiving ART, so as to provide more personalized care. The application of ARTIS covers: patient enrollment, assessment, recruitment, management, and treatment outcomes.

ARTIS has been implemented in Zambia and Kenya. Materials were developed to fit each of the individual country’s health care systems, health services, and reporting needs. Once developed, the hospital staff were trained in ARTIS and the system was installed at the facilities.

Health Systems 20/20 also worked in Kenya to complete a HIV/AIDS Program Sustainability Analysis Tool (HAPSAT) assessment. HAPSAT was developed by Health Systems 20/20 to help governments and donors develop of HIV/AIDS policies and implement plans. HAPSAT utilizes a computer-based model to forecast and analyze the sustainability of HIV/AIDS programs during periods of service delivery scale-up and/or when facing limited or unknown future resource levels.

National Health Accounts

Health Systems 20/20 is supporting the Kenyan Ministry of Health in its third round of National Health Accounts (NHA), which aims to track national resource flows for health care overall, HIV/AIDS, and reproductive health for the fiscal year 2009/10. This information will be used to inform the official health care financing strategy of the government and to help assess the impact of recent policies aimed at addressing inequities. The estimation process entails the collection of data from a number of sources, both primary and secondary. Primary collection efforts will include the implementation of a general household health expenditure and utilization survey as well as questionnaires targeted for donors, nongovernmental organizations, employers, and insurance schemes. The 2009/10 NHA includes subaccounts for HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, reproductive health, and child health.

Health System Assessment

Continuing to strengthen Kenya’s health system requires a thorough understanding of its unique strengths and weaknesses. The Kenyan ministries of health used the HSA process to evaluate the state of the health system at the end of the current Annual Operational Plan (AOP), as an input to the formation of the new AOP, the upcoming strategic planning process for the health sector and the ongoing health policy review. The Health System Assessment (HSA) process provides a systematic and rapid synthesis of the strengths and weakness of the health system through the lens of six key technical areas: governance, health financing, health service delivery, human resources, medical products management, and health information systems. It provides policymakers and program managers with actionable recommendations on how to strengthen the health system.

The HSA in-country process in Kenya consisted of four elements: a consensus-building meeting with the ministries of health; a large stakeholder meeting with donors, implementing partners, bilateral organizations, and government representatives; national-level key informant interviews; and field visits to facilities and health management offices. See the Kenya HSA 2010 to read about the findings.

Health Information Systems

How do we link health data from various sources with finance, human resources, and other key elements of the health care delivery system? With the Master Facility List (MFL). At its core, the MFL is a simple database which captures basic information about every health facility in Kenya (both public and private). 

The MFL has an internal site that is accessible only to approved Ministry of Health staff. Using the web-based system, staff can log in and rapidly modify facility information (e.g., indicating that a facility is providing new services or that a new facility is opening). An external site is accessible to the public that allows users to search for health facilities by location, services provided, facility types, and owners.