Job description

Maisha Meds is hiring! We’re looking for an exceptional project leader with research experience and understanding of the healthcare reimbursement landscape to lead the team scaling our core program across African pharmacies.

About Maisha Meds

Maisha Meds is focused on improving healthcare quality, affordability, and access in Africa. Since incorporating in 2017, we have grown to support over 150,000 patients monthly across Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda with our suite of software products. Our network of pharmacies and clinics use our restocking system to order medicines from high quality suppliers, and we’re testing a variety of payment systems and incentive structures to improve patient uptake of high-impact health products like malaria diagnostics and treatment, antenatal care commodities, and contraceptives. We measure our success by our ability to improve the quality and affordability of healthcare commodities for low-income patients across Africa.

The organization is at an exciting inflection point – we are currently testing our digital reimbursement model for improving malaria diagnosis and treatment alongside health economics research partners and global health funders. We are currently expanding our efforts in Tanzania and Uganda, with other countries to follow. We are moving towards supporting digital reimbursement for the 16 core areas that make up Universal Health Coverage (UHC) as defined by the World Health Organization. And we have begun to partner with global health funders, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical manufacturers to ensure that the diagnostics and therapies required to support UHC are always available at the last mile, no matter how far that last mile might be.

About the Role

We believe that exceptional service delivery, real-time learning, and an iterative feedback loop are core to building game-changing healthcare programs at scale. We recently secured funding from USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Grand Challenges Canada to test a more transparent and accountable model of delivery of global health funding. This model enables point of care reimbursement for essential health products via mobile money, which has the potential to transform the fundamentals of health financing in low- and middle-income countries. We are looking for a strong leader and analytical thinker to help us build this into a flagship program demonstrating the potential of data-driven healthcare delivery for the bottom of the pyramid. The ideal candidate will:

• Be excited to grow our network of pharmacies reimbursing for care from 25 to 200+, including building operations, supply chain and training teams and systems required to achieve this
• Engage with our tech team to build a scalable reimbursement product that has the potential to impact the lives of millions of people
• Be keen to help drive debates around how to structure reimbursement to improve quality of care and expand access in rural areas, with a focus on ensuring medication adherence and incentivizing use of diagnostic tests and WHO prequalified medication
• Be interested in working with our economics research partners to test ideas at a small scale before rolling them out across our network

The ideal candidate will be comfortable with ambiguity, able to respond quickly to changing conditions, and excited that we could be growing the program over the next year from two service lines that we support now (contraceptives and malaria care) to potentially 5-6 (with including an upcoming COVID testing program). In this role, the Director of Programs will lead Maisha Meds program development in Kenya and across the region. Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, you will:

Develop and lead operations for our core reimbursement programs: With support from our COO and other leadership, you will develop our operations systems for scaling our reimbursement product, structuring onboarding and training programs, ensuring compliance with regulation and best-practice, and ensure that we are gathering learnings and feedback from sites to help us improve our programs. You will:

• Build the team to support a network of healthcare providers for our reimbursement systems
• Set KPIs and structure work plans to ensure we hit targets and with strong execution
• Manage all activities relating to achieving scale and service delivery objectives and targets
• Motivate our team to align their work streams in support of operational targets and objectives

Lead development of our reimbursement systems: You will develop pathways and protocols; help us structure small-scale pilots and learning activities to help set reimbursement rates and copayments; and help us identify further priority products and expansion plans for new geographies. You will:

• Conduct small-scale operational research to decide how to structure subsidies to ensure med adherence and affordability of high-value products with low adoption rates currently
• Help us to develop and prioritize the pipeline of potential future programs, expansion geographies, and partnerships for patient engagement and acquisition

Lead engagement with our tech team to support product development and iteration: You will work directly with a team of software engineers to ensure that we are building world-class tech, with a focus on user experience, A/B testing for copayments and messaging, and patient identification / fraud mitigation. You will:

• Develop a feedback loop to the tech team for refining and expanding our tech product
• Help us build a proof of concept for A/B testing, with a focus on setting copayment based on patient demographics and ability to pay for care
• Evaluate technical integrations with potential partnerships, develop low fidelity ways of testing partnerships before engaging the tech team

Qualifications

We are seeking someone with a mix of operational and research experience who has worked in and engaged with African health systems. Candidates who fit the following criteria are strongly encouraged to apply:

• Strategic leader and strong project manager with a track record of building and managing successful teams, including experience with complex field operations in East Africa
• Experience building clinical protocols, training programs, or similar systems
• Growth mindset and enthusiasm for learning, feedback and continuous improvement
• Humility and personal stability. We are looking for passionate professionals that combine strong leadership skills with good humor, patience, and a humble approach to service
• Collaborative team player who can engage leaders across the organization to meet strategic objectives
• Experience managing team performance, including recruiting future leaders and developing them to achieve their potential
• Ability to roll up one’s sleeves and directly move projects forward
• Strong data & Excel skills; knowledge of R, python, or Stata are a plus
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Swahili language skills

We would prefer to have you based in Nairobi, with regular travel to our office in Kisumu. However, our team is geographically split and we are open to you being based anywhere in Kenya. 

Why You Should Join Us

Maisha Meds aims to leverage technology to solve problems that affect millions of people across sub-Saharan Africa. Though we can’t offer you catered meals and conference bikes like in Silicon Valley, we can promise you an opportunity to drive real, quantifiable change that literally saves lives. We are dedicated to our work and care deeply about our product’s impact. You’ll join our small and friendly team to grow Maisha Meds into a company serving tens of millions of people across East Africa. 

Start date is September 2020, and compensation is commensurate with experience.