INSPIRE Pakistan

Informing the Social Health Protection Initiative through Rigorous Evidence

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Population panel: Phone survey on children & adolescents health completed

Following the first wave of in-person data collection which finished in March, the population panel group successfully implemented a quick follow-up phone survey on health care of children and adolescents. The data collection took place between April 15th and April 29th via phone with the professional support of I.C.U. Healthcare and represents the first phone survey conducted by the research consortium for the SHPI Phase 2.

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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.

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Newly 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.

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