2016 ICT4D Conference

MicroEnsure and Grameen Foundation are leveraging the reach and cost-effectiveness of mobile technology to reimagine the health financing landscape in Kenya. Our solution eliminates the financial barriers that lead poor Kenyans to delay seeking care, self-diagnose, and forego needed services. It bundles features that empower clients to manage their health and financial risk.

Our product, Fearless Health, provides mobile credit on-demand for primary health care services at participating clinics, requiring no advanced planning or payment. As Fearless Health customers repay with mobile money over time, they gain access to hospitalization insurance, health information, and a mobile game with the chance to win cash prizes. Designed in 2015 through an iterative research, prototyping, and testing process in collaboration with target clients and health clinics serving the poor, the product is now in pilot with two outpatient clinics in Nairobi.

Using technology to connect a loan management backend, a mobile payments platform, and a messaging system, the solution will be straightforward to install with new providers and is poised to scale rapidly to additional high-quality, low-cost providers reaching Kenya's poor. Fearless Health is proving how an agile, mobile-based financing and information solution can improve appropriate care-seeking behavior and ultimately lead to better health outcomes for low-income Kenyans.