Our Strategy

LifeNet evaluated several pro-poor healthcare models during its initial research and concluded that franchising partnerships with church-based clinics and hospitals offered the most promising health model for East Africa’s impoverished communities.  LifeNet is currently building upon these findings through its conversion franchise in Burundi, East Africa.

Conversion franchising

A church-based clinic or hospital enters into a partnership with LifeNet to implement our conversion franchise for primary healthcare.  The franchise comprises on-going access to LifeNet training programs, franchising systems, and management tools.  In exchange, a clinic agrees to implement LifeNet’s standards of quality care and adhere to taught best practices.  The LifeNet team provides quarterly on-site evaluations to monitor quality impact and each clinic’s progress.

The LifeNet franchise centers on four core areas of clinical operations:

1. NURSE TRAINING
   • Hands-on and lecture format training given on-site at each clinic
   • Flow charts and reference materials to reenforce taught material
   • Quarterly quality-of-care metrics
2. MANAGEMENT TRAINING
   • Management coaching for clinic operator
   • Monthly financial management tools
   • Patient data management tools
3. PHARMACEUTICAL CONSULTANCY
   • Best practices in medicine sourcing
   • Inventory optimization tools
   • Protocols for proper disposal of expired medications
4. COMMUNITY HEALTH WORK
   • Communal awareness of locally available health services
   • Communal knowledge of preventative care techniques
   • Expansion of clinic’s local visibility within the community

Church-based healthcare: sustainable, long-term, and local

LifeNet observed that church-based clinics and hospitals in Burundi saw more patients, delivered a higher quality of care, and did so for cheaper than many of their counterparts.  Encouraged by what we saw on-the-ground, LifeNet developed a conversion franchise model that would enable existing clinics to further their impact in their own communities.  Furthermore, the churches often operate small networks of clinics and hospitals throughout the country, making them powerful vehicles for systemic change.

Church-based clinics are committed to a long-term vision for the communities in which they serve, many with over 10 years of local operations.  LifeNet visited one clinic whose continuous operations since the 1930′s are still providing the best healthcare in the province.  LifeNet sought partners with a long-term approach to change and who understand that enduring change takes time.  In Burundi, church-based healthcare functions as a hybrid entity within the country’s private sector, in that it prioritizes social good over profits but is balanced by a need for financial self-sustainability.  The clinics cover monthly operating costs through fee-for-service care and sales of basic medicines from the clinic’s pharmacy.  Revenue generated in excess of operating expenses often go to provide care for the poorest clients or to lower overall prices for the community.  LifeNet’s management coaching helps clinics to improve administrative and financial efficiency, thereby expanding healthcare affordability.

Our partnerships with church-based health facilities enable sustainable, long-term, and local solutions to local health challenges.

Empowering a network

By year-end 2011, LifeNet aims to partner with 20 clinics in the first phase of our partner expansion.  LifeNet will continue to expand our patner network thereafter, linking the country’s church based clinics to a wide-ranging health network.

At scale, LifeNet will bring together a powerful network for change.  LifeNet will serve as a catalyst of best practices in local health and provide a means of sharing that knoweldge with other clinics committed to quality and affordable healthcare for all Burundians.

LifeNet envisions a strategy of partnership, of sustainability, and of scale to change Burundi’s health realities for the next generation.