National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) Health Financing Reforms Experts’ Panel (HEFREP) Visit to Thailand on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and Health Technology Assessment (HTA)

Kenya’s President has committed to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2022. The National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) that provides medical insurance coverage to its members and their declared dependents will be transformed to become the manager of UHC. To this end, the Cabinet Secretary for Health constituted Health Financing Reforms Expert Panel who is tasked with proposing recommendations on how the NHIF can be reformed.

Through an established relationship between the Kenyan and Thai Ministries of Health, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on health care was signed in February 2019. As part this collaboration, the NHIF expert panel was invited for a study visit to Thailand. The visit was led by the National Health Security Office (NHSO) which, the manager of the Universal Coverage Scheme in Thailand, has important lessons and experiences to share. Through the study visit the Panel to understand how Universal Health Coverage, health systems and Health Technology Assessment (HTA) in Thailand were developed; this includes health workforce, health delivery systems development, Universal Health Coverage management, HTA system and the link to NHSO in particular UCS management. The visit concluded with a discussion between the Kenyan delegation and Thai experts on the lessons learned and recommendations.

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