VillageReach

VillageReach develops, evaluates and implements system innovations that address key barriers at the lower levels or "last mile" of the healthcare delivery system by streamlining health service delivery, enhancing information systems, and engaging the private sector. VillageReach develops and deploys innovations in the field, working with ministries of health and global health partners to take those innovations to scale. It also seeks to develop innovations to reduce the cost of healthcare delivery which other organizations can then leverage. This scope of work comprises healthcare service delivery, information and communications technology systems, and private sector engagement.

In Mozambique, VillageReach applied all of these capabilities to support improvements in the country’s health system. To increase access to vaccines for rural communities: the organization redesigned the distribution system; developed a logistics management information system (LMIS); provided supportive training and supervision for frontline health workers to absorb and sustain these innovations; and created and capitalized an energy services company to deliver fuel to off-grid health centers. After five years, the program increased vaccine coverage rates for children from 68% to 95% and reduced stock-outs from 80% to 1%, all at a 20% reduction in government operating costs. Today, this activity supports more than 400 rural health centers serving a population of over 8 million.

To enable countries to better manage the tracking and distribution of medical commodities, VillageReach collaborated with a number of partners to create OpenLMIS, an open source, open standards, Internet-enabled, logistics management information system. Under the OpenLMIS initiative, all countries now have access to this software platform to enable significant improvements in healthcare delivery at costs much lower than prevailing solutions. OpenLMIS is now deployed in Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, with future implementations anticipated.