Advancing healthcare, together, in Kenya

Following the recent announcement that GE will invest $2 billion in Africa by 2018 in the areas of infrastructure development, skills training and sustainability initiatives, Farid Fezoua (President & CEO of GE Healthcare Africa) affirms GE’s commitment to the advancement of healthcare across Africa and right here in Kenya, supporting government priorities to increase access to more affordable and quality healthcare and to improve health outcomes for all Kenyans.

Today the demand for better quality healthcare across Africa is greater than ever before and here in Kenya is no exception, in line with the Government’s Vision 2030 plan.

With one doctor per 10,000 residents, Kenya faces a significant shortage of physicians. Rapidly changing disease patterns, high infant mortality rates, lack of access to medical oxygen, misdiagnosis of illnesses and inferior treatment of preventable chronic diseases are commonplace.

Financial constraints and healthcare infrastructure limitations add to the barriers that citizens face in their daily lives.

In response to these challenges, Kenya is investing significantly in healthcare infrastructure develop development. We believe that advancing Kenyan healthcare will aid socio-economic diversity and stimulate
faster growth.

Therefore, in this globalized economy, it makes sense for organizations like GE to support financially – and through technology, education and performance optimization - the development of
African healthcare. In fact, it represents an unprecedented opportunity to invest and solve.

Our approach to addressing this is called healthymagination, a global $6B commitment to improving quality, lowering cost and increasing access to healthcare.

In Africa, this strategy has helped GE Healthcare prioritize its investments, drive big ideas forward, and partner with thought leaders to link more closely with the healthcare ecosystem.

A SYSTEM-WIDE APPROACH

Despite advances, government healthcare spending per capita remains low versus the West and infrastructure is often poor. Across many part of sub-Saharan Africa, for example, access to appropriate healthcare facilities and qualified healthcare expertise remains a challenge.

Recognizing that health and socioeconomic prosperity are inextricably linked, governments in emerging markets understand that they must aim for a fast-changing healthcare agenda where increasing access to
primary healthcare services, educating the predominantly young population on key health issues and ensuring adequate training and critical skills for the healthcare workforce rank among the top priorities.

Already we see significant investments being made across the continent geared towards the development of more modern healthcare systems aimed at matching the evolving healthcare needs.

In addition to revised legal frameworks and healthcare policies, the focus on training and education of healthcare professionals in these countries is unprecedented.

As many emerging nations mobilize to transform health, leveraging innovation to deliver more holistic, system-wide approaches to fixing gaps in the system, we see some African countries even begin to leapfrog
their counterparts in the West – a significant sign that progress is being made.

At GE Healthcare we see that it takes different approaches to solve a problem and we are helping by providing medical technologies, consumer education, training, financing and software and deploying it in a way that
works in an African context.

INNOVATION IN HEALTH MANAGEMENT

At GE we see that innovation come in different shapes and sizes – from big iron systems to small handheld scanning devices. For example, we found that GE Healthcare’s portable mobile ultrasound, which fits in the palm of your hand like a smartphone, is a great product that has the potential to improve maternal and infant care in rural settings.

Through our focus on reverse innovation, GE Healthcare is bringing a new way of thinking in product development, based first on specific emerging-market needs and then scaling these for resource-rich settings.

Better data-management tools will also enable governments such as Kenya where human resources are limited, to better study disease patterns, and capture treatment outcomes and care provision, so that their spending can be used more productively.

Further, emerging manufacturing techniques will give us reliable, low-cost devices and allow us to put scans in place in remote and rural settings.

Technological innovation is just one aspect of the paradigm. We also see innovation in processes, productivity and leadership practices that ensure a more comprehensive approach to innovation.

A 100-YEAR COMMITMENT TO DEVELOPING HEALTHCARE IN AFRICA

GE has a long history in delivering better healthcare in Africa.

Since arriving on the continent over 100 years ago we have been at work to deliver healthcare solutions that address the real needs of people, led by a commitment to building long-term sustainable partnerships.'

Today, we are scaling up and localizing our operations, our people and our offerings across the region.

We believe that helping our partners fix their problems is where we can add the greatest value, as nowhere is there a greater demand than in African markets where GE Healthcare is actively investing its expertise and bringing technologies and innovations to the region.

From our experience on the ground, we see a profound need for training and education. Moreover, through our work we are helping hospitals reduce inefficiencies and eliminating waste, scaling service capabilities to optimize product performance and patient safety; increasing general knowledge to help people make better-informed decisions about their health; supporting human capital development; professionalizing the region’s healthcare workforce, and leveraging big iron and big data to connect machines, people and information to improve outcomes.

Our approach is simple – we strive to listen to and to understand our customers and work with our partners to develop solutions aimed at addressing specific needs.

With a population of over 44 million people, healthcare is a major social and economic force for Kenya. Here are a few examples of GE’s work in the country:

• In November 2014, the First Lady of Kenya announced the new Hewa Tele Project located in the Siaya County Referral Hospital, a partnership between the GE Foundation, the Center for Public Health and Development and Assist International to establish a successful scalable oxygen supply system for rural district settings. Medical Oxygen is classified by the WHO as an essential drug that is hugely influential in combating child mortality, reducing it by up to 35 per cent.

In 2014, GE Healthcare, USAID and the Kenya Commercial Bank are collaborating to support SMEs, with $10 million in local financing for the development of private health facilities including doctor partnerships, diagnostic centres and hospitals.

In December 2013, the GE Foundation’s Developing Health Globally program donated a $3 million grant to Vanderbilt University in the United States to fund international medical education and research in Kenya and other low-resource regions of the world. The major focus of this program is to develop training programs that can demonstrably lower surgical and obstetric mortality, as well as dramatically improve and expand
education of anesthesia providers in these regions.

• In 2012, with a focus on advancing surgical care in Africa, GE chose Kenya for the first launch of one of its anesthesia delivery systems.

• Through the Developing Health Globally program, GE has partnered with the Kenya Ministry of Health to improve the surgical capacity in Western Kenya, equipping operating rooms and providing training.

GE also introduced the Safe Surgery Clinical Training Program, partnering with the Kenya Society of Anaesthesiology and National Association of Anesthesia Clinical Officers. The program has trained more than130 professionals in Nairobi, Kisumu, Kakamega, Mombasa, Machakos and Eldoret.

GE is both a global and African company committed to localized innovation, partnerships and talent.

With Nairobi serving as the headquarters for GE’s operations in sub-Sahara Africa since 2011, we look forward to the next 100 years in Africa.