ACCESS Health International will serve on the WHO SEARO Advisory Committee to the Regional Forum for Primary Health Care-Oriented Health Systems. The forum was launched at the Regional Workshop to Strengthen Primary Health Care in the South-East Asia Region in Bangkok, Thailand on November 28. Representing ACCESS Health at the forum were Regional Director, South Asia, Dr. Krishna Reddy Nallamalla, Deputy Country Director (Technical) Maulik Chokshi, and Director of Communications, Relations, and Partnerships, Dr Uma Aysola. The Regional PHC Forum will drive action across countries through capturing and facilitating implementation-focused knowledge and experience, strengthened collaboration across development, implementation, and research partners, towards Member State priorities. The forum will also enable joint advocacy for strengthened PHC investment in the Region. Member State priorities and needs will drive the Regional PHC Forum, with partners providing support. The cohort will work on seven thematic tracks under primary healthcare, ACCESS Health will lead the track on financing. The other tracks include PHC workforces, urban PHC, quality of medical products, community, PHC performance monitoring, and assured services. Representatives from SE Asia Region Member States, WHO, USAID, UNICEF, Asian Development Bank, Gates Foundation, JHPIEGO, PATH International, ACCESS Health International, and other relevant partner institutions will serve as an Advisory Committee to the Forum. The Advisory Committee will identify thematic areas and leads, as well as support the preparation and content of regular convening of the SEAR PHC Forum. The Advisory Committee will, as relevant, also seek to guide and enable joint research.
ACCESS Health at Economist Impact: Future of Healthcare Week Asia 2022
Sejal Mistry, Regional Director at ACCESS Health International, participated in a panel session at this year's Economist Impact Future of Healthcare Week Asia. The theme of the panel centered around healthcare financing trends, and how to prioritize health spending to achieve universal healthcare. During the session, panelists discussed how healthcare spending across countries is slowing despite rising inflation, as governments seeking to repair budget deficits after the pandemic. More challenges loom in the horizon, such as the rise in burden of chronic and non-communicable diseases. New innovative financing models are required to fund future healthcare services in Asia. Corporate health insurance was discussed as a means of boosting universal health coverage in the post-pandemic era. To achieve this goal, panelists stressed the importance of a multi-stakeholder ecosystem across the public, private, and civil sector.
ACCESS Health Southeast Asia host inaugural Modern Aging Series Panel
On November 16, ACCESS Health Southeast Asia kicked off the inaugural Modern Aging Series Panel, which explored opportunities for innovation in aging in Singapore and APAC. In attendance were representatives from the industry, including pharma, design, finance, research, social, and the public sector. The first session focused on opportunities in the longevity economy, with speakers highlighting cross-cutting areas for aging innovation, including translational medicine for aging, inclusive consumer products (e.g. travel industry), workplace longevity, and job redesign for older adults. Some key takeaways from the session were: – Prioritize health span over life span: Longevity medicine research and chronic disease management will maximizing the productive years of older adults – Job redesign for older adults must be centered around their needs (e.g. flexible working hours) – Reskilling initiatives should tailor to older adults' learning pace and industry demands. – Workplace and business innovation require cross-industry coalitions to increase workplace inclusivity for older workers. – Every generation of older adults (Boomers, Gen X) has different consumer preferences and literacy that product innovation for aging must factor in. Overall, the inaugural Modern Aging panel reflected a plurality of insights on the potential of longevity economy in local and regional industries, as well as the shared interest in aging innovation.
Financial Inclusion for Universal Health Coverage Summit 2022
On October 18, ACCESS Health International Southeast Asia organized the Financial Inclusion for Universal Health Coverage Summit in collaboration with the Institute of Insurance and Risk Management, Hyderabad. The summit brought together relevant stakeholders and actors from various sectors, including health, finance, and technology. Attendees included start-up founders, central and state government representatives, insurance companies, academicians, development sector partners, and experts. The summit explored a variety of approaches to health financing, financial inclusion, digital transformation, and primary healthcare. ACCESS Health International Southeast Asia will be organizing a follow-up collaborative brainstorming discussion to take these ideas and approaches further.
ACCESS Health SE Asia at Singapore Week of Innovation & Technology (SWITCH)
ACCESS Health Southeast Asia participated in two different events at the Singapore Week of Innovation Technology (SWITCH). On October 25, Vigneswari A, ACCESS Health SE Asia Consultant, moderated a fireside chat with Lauren Liang from Swiss Re, on strengthening universal health coverage (UHC) through innovations in private insurance. The speakers discussed the common challenges facing UHC including: growing healthcare expenditures, the rise in non-communicable diseases, and weak financial protection. The chat concluded by reiterating the importance of public-private partnerships to increase the uptake of private insurance in strengthening UHC. On October 26, ACCESS Health Southeast Asia and AWS Institute organized a panel session on cloud adoption in public health. The session saw Simeen Mirza, Senior Consultant at ACCESS Health SE Asia, present findings from the report Overcoming Barriers to Cloud Adoption in Public Healthcare. This was followed by a discussion with Dr. Suhina Singh from Jonda Health, Farhana Nakhooda from Health Catalyst, Dr. Chet Yong from Amazon Web Services, Leong Kui Lim from Speedoc, and Pak Setiaji from Indonesia's Digital Transformation Office. The panelists reflected on how the Covid-19 pandemic sparked many countries to adopt cloud technology for greater efficiency. More governments and organizations in the region are increasingly investing in cloud and data analytics as they shift towards value-based care. Many common challenges plague cloud adoption in the region, however, such as the lack of digital infrastructure, privacy and security in handling sensitive patient data, and cloud skill gap. Moving forward, panelists agreed it is essential to keep abreast and update data governance regulation, training healthcare workers in cloud literacy, and building data architecture to support cloud usage.
Staff Spotlight: Sejal Mistry
Sejal Mistry is the Regional Director of ACCESS Health Southeast Asia and recently celebrated five years with the organization. She has been the driving force behind building the Southeast Asia office's successful health financing consulting and advisory practice and brings a diverse, international background to the role. Sejal began her career at the US National Institutes of Health, first as a researcher, then as a policy advisor. Much of her education and work experience was focused the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. She studied antiretroviral treatment in South Africa and joined the U.S. PEPFAR initiative. Later, she moved to South Korea and worked for the government as a Senior International Health Advisor on health financing and strategic purchasing. This experience set the foundation for her work on health financing and UHC at ACCESS Health International. Sejal is passionate about healthcare policy at national and international levels and enjoys the "intellectual excitement of being at the forefront of some really unique ideas and approaches" working at ACCESS Health International. She is also grateful to work with smart, dedicated, and caring people, and we are grateful to benefit from her talents.
Financial Inclusion for Universal Health Coverage Summit 2022
ACCESS Health International Southeast Asia co-hosted the Financial Inclusion for Universal Health Coverage Summit on October 18, 2022 with the Institute of Insurance and Risk Management, Hyderabad. The summit was attended by start-up founders, central and state government representatives, insurance companies, industry, academicians, development sector partners and experts. The summit brought together a diverse set of stakeholders and actors from various sectors, including health, finance, and technology. The summit achieved its goal of engaging stakeholders to brainstorm and echo ideas that pave the way to innovation, development, and distribution of digital financial services that help achieve financial inclusion, better health, and ultimately, universal health coverage for the people of India. The stakeholders engaged through two empowering panel discussions on innovation and distribution of digital financial services for health, respectively. Panelists for the event included experts from both the public and private sectors. The summit also included insightful presentations on fintech landscape and opportunities in India based on the report by ACCESS Health International Southeast Asia and on the application of e-RUPI by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). The summit discussed numerous ideas and approaches on a variety of topics including health financing, financial inclusion, digital transformation, and primary healthcare. It sets the stage for ACCESS Health International Southeast Asia's upcoming initiatives and activities in India and beyond on integration of digital financial services and health. Key insights from the discussion: India's journey to achieve universal health coverage and better health for all The summit began with Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) calling to identify synergies between stakeholders to collaborate and create a 360-dimensional change in India's health ecosystem. IRDAI expressed strong optimism for meaningful outputs from the summit while, emphasizing the learnings from the lessons learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic management in India, especially with health service delivery and financing. Mention of some of the critical issues, such as: lack of knowledge and understanding of the health financing needs, innovative practices for vulnerable populations, reduce the pain points in the health and financing ecosystem, identify synergies and collaboratively work to bridge the gaps between sectors and the system that hamper the collaboration between private and public systems of the country in the area of health service delivery and financing set the stage for rest of the day. NITI Aayog laid the foundation of the summit by pointing out nature and capacity of public sector initiatives under Ayushman Bharat including the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), the social health insurance for the lower income populations, Health and Wellness Centers (AB-HWCs), the primary-level healthcare initiative, National Digital Health Mission (ABDM), the digital health ecosystem initiative, and the Health Infrastructure Mission (ABHIM), the public healthcare infrastructure development initiative by the Government of India. Shedding light on the challenges and pain points, NITI Aayog expressed the difficulties in development of a model which is sustainable, affordable and can address all the challenges regarding distribution, volume and outsourcing for improved private sector collaboration. Laying down government's priority to prevent families going into poverty due to medical expenses, NITI Aayog expressed the need for private sector to closely work with PM-JAY and ABDM while leveraging fintech, which has been a game changer in terms of financial access for people. Opportunities for Fintech in India's healthcare ecosystem: Echoing the objective of universal health coverage, ACCESS Health International Southeast Asia began with a presentation on fintech for health and pathways for UHC through financial inclusion and technology. Nourishing the summit with comprehensive and articulated insights, the presentation provided various forms of digital financial services that have been conceptualized and available. Drawing on the work done in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nepal, China, and India, the presentation showcased the impact of integration between digital platforms and traditional financial services through use of digital wallet, digital ID, and analytics. Focusing on India, the presentation delivered the role of community level care and the complementary nature of digital financial services to PM-JAY and other public programs in health through the lens of affordability and accessibility for lower and lower-middle income populations. The presentation further contextualized the use of digital financial services through personas representing lower and lower-middle income people incurring medical expenses. ACCESS Health International Southeast Asia shared their vision to bring together public sector and the private sector with innovative startups and companies that are looking to make a difference to the people. Delving further into India's health and fintech ecosystem, the second presentation from ACCESS Health International Southeast shared the recently published report to showcase opportunities and challenges for digital financial services in the country. The presentation provided a comprehensive profile of India in terms of the health systems, fintech and health-tech startup landscape, and numerous initiatives created by the public and private sectors including Unified Payments Interface (UPI), e-RUPI, Unified Health Interface (UHI), Jan Dhan Yojana, digital wallets and applications. The presentation provided data-driven insights through enabling factors and a quantitative index that showcased the potential and scope for digital financial services in health. The presentation further shed light on 24 opportunities conceptualized by the authors and detailed the country-specific solution for India that is elaborated in the report. The presentation concluded with elaboration on the India solution that built upon the foundations of UHI and UPI to create a fintech-enabled interoperable health ecosystem that can be leveraged by the government, healthcare providers, hospitals, and most importantly reduce the out-of-pocket expenditure for the lower and lower middle-income populations. These presentation set the context and provided the participants with a window into the wide and impactful scope for digital financial services in healthcare. Development of affordable innovations in digital financial services for health: The first panel discussion at the summit was focused on deliberating private-sector led development innovative and affordable digital financial services for healthcare needs of the lower and lower middle-income populations. The panel included representation from fintech and health-tech startups including Clinikk, Navia Life Care, and DigiSparsh along with TPAs and insurance companies such as MediAssist and Aditya Birla Insurance. […]
Fintech Revolution for Primary Healthcare Webinar
On October 12, ACCESS Health Southeast Asia hosted the Fintech in Primary Healthcare webinar, which saw our consultants Sireesha Perabathina and Abhishek Sudke presenting key insights from the ACCESS Health & Metlife Foundation report. This was followed by a panel (moderated by Regional Director Sejal Mistry) with key contributors Ms Pragati Jaiswal, Dr. Pankaj Gupta, Dr. Fida Mehran, Ms Dini Rawati, and Dr. Samila Fernando. The session was also attended by representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, digital and insurtech companies, NGOs and academia. The participants discussed how pre-existing synergies between the primary healthcare system, digital landscape, and government policies were essential to develop fintech services in healthcare, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cultivating these synergies require forging strong private-public partnerships across fintech and primary healthcare ecosystems. Only then can the various stakeholders - governments, digital tech companies, regulators, investors – have clear roles in driving, scaling up, and sustaining fintech integration into health services. Moving forward, participants reflected that governments must ensure that their primary healthcare systems are robust before fintech services can realize its full potential to increase affordability and accessibility of healthcare to unserved and underserved populations. Fintech-enabled healthcare delivery necessitates cross-sectoral collaborations between the public and private sector. Read the ACCESS Health X Metlife Foundation report here.
Fintech for Health Case Study: Healthcare financing in Indonesia
In this edition of Fintech for Health case studies, ACCESS Health Southeast Asia highlights healthcare financing challenges in Indonesia, and the role of insurtech company PasarPolis in bridging gaps in health coverage. Despite the rollout of national health insurance scheme in 2014, Indonesians still face challenges of high out-of-pocket expenses, limited healthcare providers, and little to no uptake of insurance by those living in poverty. Through the use of digital analytics and technology, PasarPolis has offered several micro and modular insurance products through its digital platform to many Indonesians. Currently, the organization continues to expand its outreach through partnerships with various local organizations, and has since expanded into Thailand and Vietnam. Read the case study and PasarPolis' solutions in addressing challenges to Indonesia's healthcare financing landscape here.
Fintech for Health Case Study: Migrant Workers in Malaysia
ACCESS Health Southeast Asia released a Fintech for Health case study on how fintech can offer financial protection to migrant workers in Malaysia from high healthcare costs. Nearly 2 million migrant workers live in Malaysia. Yet, many migrant workers are uninsured, with anestimated 90% of migrant workers visiting private clinics to receive healthcare. Expenses from privateoutpatient care is cited as their major barrier in seeking healthcare. Moreover, migrant workers areoften financially illiterate and have limited to no insurance protections for injury and death. It isimperative to address these problems to improve the health outcomes of migrant workers in Malaysia. Read the case study on how Merchantrade Asia, a fintech company, offers solutions to bridge thesehealthcare challenge here.