We are happy that the field work of the population panel group started successfully in the end of January 2022. As part of the research consortium for the SHPI Phase 2, the population panel group assesses eligible households’ health conditions and needs, their health care services utilization, and their preferences concerning the design of the outpatient department (OPD) insurance scheme.
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FAU and KMU sign MoU with the Social Health Protection Initiative
During their stay in Pakistan, the team members of our research consortium had the opportunity to meet the major key stakeholders from the project at the stakeholder meeting that took place in Bhurban on November 20th. On the occasion, Khyber Medical University (KMU) and Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Social Health Protection Initiative (SHPI) in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province to enable the conduct of the research study. As presented here, the study will provide scientific evidence for the implementation of the SHPI and the extension of the SHPI to outpatient care services (OPD) in four pilot districts of the province.
Continue readingVisit of the German SHPI research team members to Pakistan
From November 15th to December 3rd 2021, seven research team members from Friedrich-Alexander-University (FAU) and the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health (HIGH) spent three highly productive weeks in Pakistan. The research team members of Khyber Medical University (KMU) were excellent hosts and, working together, the entire team made good progress on the research.
Continue readingNewly published in the Geneva Risk and Insurance Review: Does free hospitalization insurance change health care consumption of the poor? Short-term evidence from Pakistan
We are excited to see our paper published – online for now, but hopefully soon in the special issues “Risk Considerations and Insurance in Developing Countries”. In the paper, Prof. Dr. Andreas Landmann and Dr. Simona Helmsmüller study the effect of free hospitalization insurance on inpatient care consumption patterns. This was part of Phase 1 of the ongoing Social Health Protection Initiative (SHPI), which aimed at reducing financial barriers and increasing access of the poor to health services in selected districts of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province and the Gilgit Baltistan (GB) area through provision of free insurance coverage for inpatient health services (IPD). The program, which was launched in December 2015 in four pilot districts and then extended province-wide, covers the poorest 21% of households in the area through the delivery of insurance cards at fully subsidized rates.
Continue readingBackground: the Social Health Protection Initiative
What is SHPI?
In Pakistan, where more than 48 million people live under the national poverty line, health-related expenditures are a major cause of economic shock for poor families. More than half of all the money spent on health comes out of patients’ own pockets. In the absence of social health protection schemes which make health services affordable, many of Pakistan’s poorest citizens simply do not seek care when they fall ill.
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