“What are your numbers?” was the first question from a young, affable entrepreneur to a slightly younger, non-American physician at the breakfast table one morning at the SEAD Conference. It’s a question definitely important in the context of innovative health care, but perhaps not the greeting the physician expected.

This brought to my mind the difficulty I have seen in communication between physicians and their MBA counterparts. In a medical setting, emphasizing patient numbers without emphasis on quality of care can be a disaster. Physicians, at least in many parts of the world, do not speak MBA jargon such as “lean processes,” “right skilling” and “scalable.”

Dr. Philip McKinley, ophthalmologist with Duke Eye Center and SEAD mentor, was featured on the NextBillion.net blog this week. His piece discusses how to bridge the gap in communication between physicians and entrepreneurs when working together on social ventures.

NextBillion.net aims to connect business leaders, social entrepreneurs, NGOs, policy makers, and academic interested in the connection between development and enterprise.

Read the full blog post here. 

Earlier this month, SEAD Innovator Naya Jeevan announced it will join the Business Call to Action (BCtA), a global initiative which "aims to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by challenging companies to develop inclusive business models that offer the potential for both commercial success and development impact." Naya Jeevan committed to ensuring more than 39,000 low-income workers in Pakistan will have access to affordable, quality health care by 2015. In the next five years, they plan to distribute USD 14.8 million in health claim benefits to its health plan beneficiaries.

Naya Jeevan provides low-income communities access to a nationwide network of healthcare providers. Naya Jeevan collaborates with multinational corporations, local businesses, schools, and other institutions and hopes to scale up its intervention in Pakistan while expanding to Mexico and the United States.

Nicholas Sowden, founder of Penda Health, was recently quoted in an article about impact investing and how it is key in growing industry in Kenya.  Check out the article published by The Standard Group here.

Shelly Batra, founder and president of Operation ASHA, has been invited to delivery the keynote address and be a panelist for the Institute of Competitiveness' Social Enterprise Summit being held March 4, 2014.  The event is being held in Gurgaon, India, and will feature a series of workshops and discussions on creating social enterprises, understanding their impact on communities, and best practices for sustaining the enterprises.

For more information on the Summit and the Institute of Competitiveness, visit their website.

Riders for Health has received high praise from the vice president of Gambia, Dr Isatou Njie Saidy, during a ceremony presenting the Ministry of Health with a new fleet of motorcycles and vehicles.

"VP Njie-Saidy noted that although it has been five years, those vehicles and motorcycles are still on the road thanks to the efficient and effective maintenance services of Riders for Health, adding that since the advent of the July 22nd revolution, the health sector has and continues to be a priority for the government.

She added that the contract with Riders for Health had made available a dedicated fleet of vehicular transport, and an effective system to manage the fleet to ensure that health workers, drugs, vaccines, medical supplies, bed-nets, and reproductive health commodities materials, reach the targeted communities and patients get to hospitals for quick medical care."

Read more from The Point.

Ecopreneurist recently did a great write-up on the WE CARE Solar is doing with their portable solar power suitcases.

"Stachel’s husband, a solar energy educator, built a prototype of a portable solar electric system designed specifically for maternity wards, labor rooms, operating rooms, and labs. This portable solar power system fit into a suitcase-sized enclosure, and when Stachel brought it with her to a Nigerian hospital, to be used to charge LED lights, headlamps, and walkie-talkies, the healthcare workers immediately saw the importance of having such a system, especially in outlying medical clinics."

Check out the entire article on their website.

We all know that the U.S. spends far too much on healthcare.  17% of GDP?  Individual hospital bills for thousands of dollars?  But is any health system really perfect?  Is it actually possible to build a low-cost, high quality health system that serves everyone’s needs? 

In terms of the system level- well the jury’s still out on that one.  But if we look a little closer, really taking the magnifying glass to some broken models around the world, we see exciting forms of healthcare delivery bubbling up.  Ones that don’t require subsidy, serve patients in the way they deserve and use technology as a true efficiency.

We’re talking about shipping container clinics providing healthcare to truck drivers across rural Africa, profitable health loans offered to patients in India with no traditional collateral, efficient/low cost health worker and supply chain training to improve health outcomes drastically. 

Sound exciting?  We think so!

That’s why we’ve picked these organizations and a few more to join the 2014 cohort of entrepreneurs in the Social Enterprise Accelerator at Duke (SEAD)!  SEAD is a USAID- funded accelerator program run in partnership by IPIHD, Duke University and Investors’ Circle- to expand the reach of high impact healthcare organizations serving low-income populations in emerging markets.  Part of SEAD involves addressing individual organization challenges - tackling access to funding, corporate partnerships, etc.  But the really exciting piece of this is how it impacts the field.  SEAD entrepreneurs are able to help each other, cross-share what works in India with Kenya and meet with government policymakers to work collaboratively on country-wide health issues.  At SEAD, we believe it’s all about investing in what works, helping great ideas grow to scale and ultimately bringing innovative, effective models of healthcare delivery to thousands around the world.

Today we’re thrilled to announce this year’s cohort of SEAD entrepreneurs.  Talk about high impact- they’re truly the ones to watch.

2014 SEAD Cohort Innovators

Africa

LifeNet- Efficient Capacity Building for Local Health Clinics

Strengthens local healthcare capacity, by partnering with community health centers to build their medical and administrative capacity and connect them with necessary pharma/medical equipment.  Partner clinics have seen a 72% increase in quality of patient care.   

Northstar- Shipping Container Clinics for Transport Workers

Operates a network of converted shipping container clinics placed along Africa’s transport corridors currently serving over 215,000 people in 13 countries.  Partners with over 70 public, private and social organizations including Chevron, Heineken, UPS and others.

India

Arogya Finance- Health Loans for the Traditionally Unbankable

Provides health loans within 24 hours to patients, approving patients based on a proprietary behavioral test rather than formal system requirements like a bank account or collateral. 

Forus Health- Intelligent Medical Technology

Focused on “Democratizing Wellness,” Forus Health develops affordable technology solutions that can easily be used by a minimally trained technician, thereby making health service accessible and scalable.  Creator of 3nethra- an intelligent pre-screening ophthalmology device. 

SughaVazhvu- Evidence Based Blue Print for Primary Care

Offers low-cost primary healthcare services through an easy to follow blue print clinic system.  This includes a focus on evidence-based primary care, use of a proprietary health management information system, community engagement tactics and highly developed protocols to treat the most common 80+ illnesses.

Swasth India – Low Cost, Patient Centered, Primary Care Franchise

Driven by the motto “Health for all,” Swasth India operates a chain of primary care centers in slum areas with a model that provides a 50% reduction in out of pocket expenses to the patient.  Provides everything in a 150 square foot facility that offers access to a family doctor, rapid diagnostics on site, discounts on drugs, referrals with discounts, in patient day care services and electronic health records.

No one knows what the future holds, but we definitely know that health needs aren’t going away.  Let’s work together to help these exciting organizations spread their models across the world.  

We are working hard to bring together an exciting three days in healthcare innovations for the 2nd Annual SEAD Summit and Symposium!

The 2nd Annual SEAD Summit brings together leading healthcare innovators from around the world for an intensive three day accelerator focused on scaling proven healthcare solutions.  This year's Summit will take place at Duke University from April 2-4, 2014 in Durham, North Carolina.  All SEAD innovators are invited to send one participant to attend the full training which provides an opportunity to meet CEO's of leading healthcare innovations, work with leading professors from Duke's Fuqua School of Business and Duke Medicine, network with undergraduate and graduate students, participate in roundtables with USAID and other healthcare funders and showcase their innovations to the broader Raleigh-Durham community.  While the accelerator portion of the SEAD Summit is closed to SEAD innovators, the general public is invited to attend the SEAD Symposium taking place on Friday, April 4th.

Registration for the public SEAD Symposium will open by late February and be available on our website.

Photo credits: Standard Digital and Safaricom Kenya

The Standard Group, a news media company in Kenya, is reporting on the work Changamka is doing on increasing access to healthcare in Kenya.  Safaricom has announced that they will be teaming up with Changamka and Britam to provide health insurance to an estimated 38 million Kenyans.  Currently 97% of Kenyans lack access to affordable health insurance options. 

Photo credits: Flynn Warren/Gobee Group

This summary provided by SEAD Student Assistant Lizzy Knippler, Duke '16.

Last week, The Guardian's Social Enterprise Network shared a gallery of social enterprise stories from Kenya captured by Gobee Group, an organization innovating "at the intersection of technology and social impact." In July 2012, photographer Flynn Warren traveled to Nairobi seeking to document the most creative, innovative, and socially-minded organizations. The end product, a book titled "Social Enterprise Stories from Urban Kenya," is the first in what Gobee hopes will be a series. They seek to "tell the story of social entrepreneurship in action through multiple, interactive media, beyond photography and print, and beyond Kenya." One of these stories is SEAD Innovator Jacaranda Health.

Jacardanda Health works to provide quality, affordable health care in low-resource settings, ensuring that every Kenyan mother has access to the care they need for a safe and healthy delivery. Their innovative mobile services allow clients to prepay towards costs, and their clinics provide quality services at one-fifth the cost of other private hospitals.

 Says Gobee, "[we] sought the four most innovative, social-minded organizations across all sectors in Kenya and instead found the biggest game changers anywhere in the world."