Regional Profile: Sub-Saharan Africa
The supply gap for health care provision is perhaps greater in Sub-Saharan Africa than in any other region. The countries that constitute the region simultaneously bear the heaviest portion of the global disease burden and have among the lowest capacity for health care delivery, and spend less per capita on health care than any other region. When one considers such a gap amid a new generation of African consumers, health care would appear to present significant opportunities for the private sector and private equity to seize.
Sub-Saharan Africa’s health care sector is underdeveloped but primed for takeoff. While Sub-Saharan Africa has attracted just a small fraction of the total capital invested in EM( Emerging Markets) health care in recent years, the region’s large gap in health care supply, growing urban populations, and receptive governments are generating opportunities for early movers in the region. Indeed, some of the largest investors in emerging markets are raising capital to back companies in the space.
One World
To complement the investments of the Global CareRight Plan, the international community has accepted an invitation to join the Global CareRight Plan for the successful adoption of the Plan in Sub-Saharan Africa and to invite the African people to be active participants in the development enterprise.
With the United Nations taking the lead in the Global CareRight Plan, the program would eventually be a joint one, agreed to by a number, if not all, African nations. We are calling on the Africans to get together, and with international help, work out their own health programs. A coalition of interests for healthcare and social development, for economic unity and political integration seems long overdue and a goal well worth pursuing.
CareRight Hospital & Medical Center: A Model for Healthcare of the Future
At the heart of The Global CareRight Plan is the construction of a USD $350 million CareRight Hospital & Medical Center, serving the East African Community, a Rising Economic Hub. This is in regard to the CareRight framework of Value-Based Health Care for restructuring healthcare systems around the globe with the overarching goal of creating valued medical care for patients. The new hospital will be designed in collaboration with Harvard Medical School Affiliates: Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital-the top academic medical centers in the world.
To be located in Kigali, Rwanda, the hospital will focus on areas such as Cardiology, Digestive Disease, and Oncology – improving clinical outcomes, performing technology-intensive complex surgeries, and providing a range of patient-centered medical services.
The hospital’s design is meant to incorporate a patient-centered healthcare philosophy and Africa’s landscaping elements “to create a medical space seamlessly connected with nature.” Through collaborative a partnership with Global Citizens and Boston’s world-leading healthcare cluster, the African people will experience the first multi-disciplinary hospital; a new state-of-the-art hospital that will be designed for two specific groups: patients and their families, and physicians, nurses, and scientists. CareRight Hospital will be built around the great idea that providing excellent patient care is tied to advances in Biomedical Research and Innovation. The result will be a powerful benefit for patients and a model for physicians and researchers from around the world. CareRight Hospital will be built with the Future in mind! The future hospital is a forward-looking experiment and breakthrough for us; and it represents a commitment from One World to patients in Africa and around the globe.
Integrated Healthcare Delivery
- CareRight Hospital & Medical Center is positioned to be the pilot zone for Africa Medical Reform to help advance the quality of the continent’s healthcare.
- The Global CareRight Plan is expected to pave the way in developing a premium innovation healthcare hub and a high-end Main campus tertiary care facility based in Kigali that can support CareRight Regional Hospitals and CareRight Family Health Centers to be established in Kampala,Uganda; Nairobi, Kenya; Dares-Salaam, Tanzania; and Burundi.
- All CareRight hospitals, outpatient clinics, and home healthcare programs will strive to earn the Joint Commission International’s (JCI) Gold Seal of Approval for hospital accreditation.
- Other locations include hospitals and outpatient clinics to be located in Johannesburg, South Africa.
- Critical care transport program, including ambulances and helicopters, to be used for urgent medical emergencies and provides hospital transfers from around the world.
- Pioneer and advocate of the Electronic Medical Recording at the forefront of EMR technology, and creating innovative partnerships with Google and Microsoft.
Collaborating Across Healthcare Systems
- Collaborations with other healthcare entities, both regionally and internationally, will strengthen the Global CareRight Plan ability to provide quick, effective, coordinated, and efficient access to care to the African people.
- This new level of international collaboration for Global health will enable us to bring thousands of private investors into the Global CareRight Plan; including the hundreds of companies that encompass the entire global healthcare landscape like pharmaceutical firms, healthcare service providers, profit and not-for-profits, and medical device companies.
Making Sub-Saharan Africa the Beacon of Universal Health Coverage
Health leaders and policymakers globally have a shared interest and commitment to achieve Universal Health Coverage by 2030 with a view to providing equitable access to high-quality health services. Despite health gains in the last 20 years, problems are particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa. As economies grow to middle-income levels, they have to tackle communicable diseases while more people are living with non-communicable diseases like diabetes and hypertension. The burden of disease may be higher in low-income economies, but the complexity of this problem could well be the greatest in middle-income countries. Often, the results are escalating unmet need and in-country variation across geographies, gender, or socio-economic groups.
The CareRight Approach: Focused investments
The Global CareRight Plan project in East Africa is envisioned to serve as a model for similar projects in Africa and around the world.
Our mission is twofold-to advance the quality of the Nations’ healthcare, of course, but also to educate and inspire a new generation of potential Biomedical leaders and innovators in a continent often referred to as Third World. We believe that the biggest problem for healthcare innovation now is really not the technology itself but the entrepreneurship involved.
With much of the globe in various stages of chaos due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the opportunities for the Global CareRight Plan seem more attractive than ever. We are designing and deploying policy-based operations to address COVID-19, advance policy reforms, and support African countries’ growth recovery efforts from the pandemic. We have run out of time to build new things in old ways.