Impact partner profile
Integrate Health
Community Health Workers integrated with improved health centres is a lifesaving combination
More than half of the world’s population lack access to essential health services, and Integrate Health exists to prove that a better standard of healthcare is possible. Beginning in the West African nation, Togo, their vision is to make quality primary healthcare accessible to all.
Integrate Health has developed a model, in collaboration with community leaders and government public health experts, that provides high-quality primary care to remote and rural communities in Togo. The model has been deliberately designed to achieve multiple health, economic, and social outcomes, as well as removing barriers to healthcare.
These components are interlinked, and include:
- Training and equipping salaried Community Health Workers who can identify healthcare needs around childhood illnesses, maternal health, and family planning.
- Recruiting Clinical Mentors to train and coach nurses and midwives in the latest best practices of diagnosis and care.
- Training Pharmacy Managers in supply chain management, to ensure that public health clinics have the products, equipment, and infrastructure needed for a high-functioning health facility.
- Subsidising public health clinics to cover point-of-care fees for pregnant women and children under five, to ensure that they receive care for free.
Integrate Health is in the initial phases of scaling its replicable primary care model to 25 sites in five districts throughout Togo. The goal is to serve 200,000 people by 2021, at a cost of only $10 per capita. Integrate Health’s vision is to ensure universal health coverage for all eight million Togolese, while advancing an improved standard of primary care across Sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, the team at Integrate Health serve over 142,000 people per year.
Core impact goals
Improved timeliness
Integrate Health aims to increase the percentage of cases of childhood illness treated within 72 hours of symptom onset - an indication of quality healthcare delivery.
Improved prenatal consultation coverage
Integrate Health aims to increase the percentage of women receiving prenatal consultations before delivery, to ensure women receive the appropriate care they need to have a healthy birth.
Improved facility-based delivery coverage
Integrate Health have a goal to increase the percentage of recorded births that take place within facilities supported by Integrate Health to ensure women deliver with access to a skilled provider.
Improved contraceptive coverage rate
Integrate Health aims to increase the percentage of eligible women effectively protected by a modern Family Planning method to ensure women have control over their reproductive health.
Type of grant funding given
FY2021 impact milestones
Integrate Health aims to reach the following impact milestones over the course of Thankyou’s grant period (9 months). Here’s how they went:
Launch new sites in five communities in the Kéran district in October 2020 and seven communities in the Binah district in July 2021, serving a total population of 166,418 and 204,000, respectively.
IH successfully launched in the Kéran district in October 2020, reaching a population of 166,000. On July 5, 2021, IH launched the Integrated Primary Care Program in the Binah district in seven communities, serving a total population of 204,000.
Across the Kozah, Bassar, Dankpen and Kéran districts, Integrate Health aim to achieve the following by June 30, 2021:
- Conduct 156,280 Home Visits
- Increase the Prenatal Consultation Coverage Rate from 44% to 50%
- Increase the number of Facility-Based Deliveries from 2,878 to 4,123
Target achieved: Home Visits - FY21 actual 230,372
Target on track: Prenatal Coverage Rate - FY21 actual 46%
Target achieved: Facility-Based Deliveries - FY21 actual 4,639
Due to the Prenatal Consultation Coverage Key Performance Indicator not being met, the Integrate Health Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning team intend to host a monthly data review meeting to discuss trends in the data from the last year, talk through lessons learned, and ensure targets are set appropriately for Fiscal Year 22.
Pilot a customised suite of Mobile Health applications for 79 Community Health Workers (CHW) across the Kozah and Bassar districts, and collect lessons learned from the pilot to inform national Mobile Health strategy.
IH is piloting three unique Mobile Health applications. In the Kozah district, IH CHWs successfully used the Medic Mobile application, with paper-based backups removed. 68 CHWs in the Dankpen and Bassar districts use ThinkMD with paper backups. Lastly, IH CHWs in the Bassar district are supervising UNICEF CHWs in their use of OpenSRP. IH eHealth team met with MOH eHealth leads, solidifying the relationship and paving the way for future collaboration.
Continue to support the Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 response at the regional and national levels through technical assistance and equipment procurement.
In partnership with COVID-19 Action Fund for Africa, IH procured personal protective equipment for all 11,000 CHWs nationally. In March 2021, IH and the MOH began constructing an infectious disease centre in Kara, ultimately reinforcing the MOH’s pandemic preparedness. IH will continue to support the MOH in their COVID-19 response plan as needed.
Continue to respond to requests from the Ministry of Health for specialised technical assistance related to community health, including cost subsidisation policy, community health harmonisation workshops, and/or the National Health and Development Plan.
In November, the government of Togo asked IH, in partnership with the Financing Alliance for Health and with support from UNFPA, to create a costing investment case to determine potential options to eliminate user fees for maternal and neonatal care. The presentation was well-received, and the government has signalled their interest in the middle package of care, nearly $50USD per pregnancy, making care free for 300,000 women annually in Togo.
