Contributors: Joao Lima Neto, HCM WG’16, Fernando Koreeda, WG’16, Manuel Saenz, WG’16
To learn more about Joao, Fernando, and Manuel, click here.
By the end of the academic year, Health Care Club members received an e-mail from Wharton Global Health Volunteers with a unique opportunity in Kenya to help primary care clinics in the slums of Nairobi. That e-mail sounded like Brazilian music to our ears. Although the three of us were born in Latin America, we were lucky to have had great opportunities that helped shape who we are both personally and professionally, and we were discussing how to give to others in need some of these opportunities. We decided to learn more about the project and had the opportunity to talk over the phone with Melissa Menkel, Co-founder and CEO of Access Afya, the affordable primary care clinics located in the slums of Nairobi. She had been working on a membership program, similar to a primary care health plan, to improve health care access to customers and members of the community.
Access Afya is a social enterprise offering affordable primary care in two different communities within the Mukuru Slum. The types of treatment the community can find are very broad, from a simple diarrhea to a diabetic treatment. The prices are extremely low – we would never have thought it possible. One consultation, including a re-visit, cost one dollar, and one malaria test around 50 cents. Beyond the clinics, Access Afya also helps improve health in local schools through a project called Healthy Schools, which offers primary school children weekly health screenings, worm pills, check-ups and health education for an extremely low price. The health conditions in these regions are extremely poor. Adults and children suffer from diseases that are easily treatable, and Access Afya is working to address exactly this problem.
Even though by developed countries standards those prices are extremely low, the cost of a treatment can be a major burden, as typical family income is around 50 dollars per month. Therefore, the Access Afya team decided to launch a membership plan, to reduce the cost of treatment and increase the healthcare access for the families in the slums. They asked us for help in refining their launch plan.
Our project consisted of helping Access Afya team address key issues in their draft product, e.g. fraud prevention, pricing, cost control, and process mapping. Melissa customized the project based on our previous experience: Joao had worked with drug plan pricing; Manuel has extensive experience in operations; and Koreeda had a strategy consulting background. We divided our 2 weeks on this project into three parts:
- understanding the clinics and all projects of Access Afya
- field work, interviews, visiting clinics
- working on the deliverables
- process mapping, pricing, systems research
- final presentation
- presenting to the entire team, minor adjustments
We spent an entire afternoon at the clinic to understand how it actually works. We talked with the clinicians and the receptionists to understand the day-to-day activities and to map the process to minimize any impact the membership plan might have. It became crystal clear that it would be almost impossible to understand the business without physically being there to experience events, not only at the clinic but also in the slum. We witnessed energy outages and floods. We discovered how customers and employees viewed and understood membership plans. Just by being there and seeing how the team operated health clinics in such a challenging environment, we learned a lot about what it is possible to achieve through business.
The previous experience of the team members combined with the close relationship we have with each other enabled us to produce the deliverables in such a short period of time. We proposed modifications to their original membership product design after speaking with potential customers in the slums and provided pricing recommendations and proposed mechanisms to reduce fraud and retain membership.
It was an incredible experience to learn with each other how to be lean and to be successful working with low income consumers in an underdeveloped market. Unfortunately, our final presentation was delayed due to scheduling conflicts, but we look forward to presenting our proposal to Melissa this fall and will be excited to hear updates about the new membership product launch.
To contact Joao: [email protected]
To contact Fernando: [email protected]
To contact Manuel: [email protected]