While working on a mhealth project that expanded across three countries, I was tasked with researching both the public health and mobile sectors in each country. Having worked on a number of strategic plans to implement mhealth, I knew what technology was being used in the field and the challenges that mobile technology can solve. But I had less knowledge about the public health challenges and the innovative, non-mobile health projects in these nations. In need to fully understand these two areas, I came upon the Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI) website. CHMI has an extensive and straightforward database to research the numerous innovations going on in developing countries. I was able to customize my search and focus on the three nations as well as the health focus (ie maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, chronic diseases, etc) and its technology (ie mobiles, GPS, radio, etc). It gave me knowledge of the specific health challenges in those nations as well as how mobile technology could be leveraged in existing programs and policies.

About CHMI

The origins of CHMI were born out of a study in 2008-2009 entitled “The Role of the Private Sector in Health Systems.” It focused on further understanding how the private sector participated in the health care sector in the developing world. CHMI was created as a continuation of the initial research through funding from the Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. The goal was to expand on the research in order to support the advancement of health markets. CHMI’s role is to identify and analyze programs and policies that improve private sector health care delivery and financing for the poor. These include mHealth programs, health franchises, health savings programs, consumer education programs, and many more. By developing this database, governments, NGOs, and social entrepreneurs can include their own innovative health programs as well as search for others. To date, there have been 978 completed programs with 117 still in the pipeline, all across 104 countries. As mentioned above, the database allows users to customize their search based on the categories below:

• Profile Status (completed or not)
• Program Type (type of innovation)
• Health Focus
• Country
• Target Population
• Legal Status (private, nonprofit, government, etc)
• Target Geography
• Reported Results
• Source of Funding
• Technology Used

Along with researching innovative programs, the database allows users to connect directly with organizations running these programs and provides content about new programs and update others already in it. It is also downloadable so users can play with the data for their research. The ability to discover and develop profiles of the programs has been primarily done by both partner organizations and CHMI staff.  But recently third parties with no CHMI affiliation, such as researchers or program managers, have also submitted profiles. By having a community approach, the database has the most up-to-date information and data. CHMI also takes responsibility to verify information with the organizations on the ground when possible.  If this is not possible, the CHMI staff tries to be as transparent with this knowledge. This includes rating the quality of the information source. Here is how they break it down:

• High: Interview with high-level employee of the organization and/or a site visit.
• Medium: High-quality website or contact with a high level employee of the organization, trusted secondary source (e.g., a report published by a collaborating organization)
• Low: Secondary online sources or other publicly available resources

In the end, CHMI wants to increase the information available about recent health innovations, assist donors/investors in identifying new models to fund, give policymakers greater knowledge about designing health policies, connect implementers in order to share lessons and knowledge, and provide data and impact evaluations submitted by partners or third parties.

With information about innovations in development (mostly around mobile technology) spread throughout the internet, CHMI has taken the reigns to promote and show the ground-breaking health market innovations. The partnership approach and focus on gathering the most accurate information gives the CHMI an extensive and trustworthy database of knowledge for practitioners, policy makers, and donors to learn the most innovative approaches.

If you have any questions or would like to include an innovative health program in the database, please contact CHMI at chmi@resultsfordevelopment.org.