Pharmacies and clinics using Maisha Meds’ software to run their businesses are seeing real, sustained growth—increasing their revenues by 24% on average in the first year, and 30% by year two.
You might think this has to do with reimbursements issued through our patient support programs. But in fact, these gains are coming just from using the free business software alone.
Maisha Meds is well-known in the global health community for its reimbursement programs that support quality, affordable care for malaria, HIV, and more. But for thousands of drug shops, pharmacies, and clinics across Africa, we are first and foremost known for intuitive point-of-sale software that they want to use. Our mobile app helps manage inventory, make sales, and track profits and losses. It’s simple, effective, and built with direct feedback from local providers—many of whom switch over from pen and paper records.
When pharmacies grow their businesses, they’re also more likely to keep essential health products in stock. This can make a major difference for peri-urban and rural health facilities, which make up over half our network across Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, and Kenya. And we’ve built our system to work online and offline, so even places with limited connectivity can use it.
For us, it’s essential that providers see the value in our point-of-sale software; it’s how they plug into our network. It’s how we gather novel data to identify critical health gaps. Only then can we leverage our network—the largest of its kind in Africa—to deploy patient programs without those providers ever having to leave the app they’re using every day.
With so many changes to foreign aid, health leaders and policymakers are looking for cost-effective and scalable ways to strengthen health systems without starting from scratch—and that means tapping into infrastructure and resources that already exist in the private sector.
It also means building data-informed approaches that are adaptable across health areas—not designed for just one disease. Whether a provider is testing for malaria, fitting someone for near-vision glasses, or counseling on different contraceptive methods, there’s value in being able to do it all in one place.
So, on this World Malaria Day, we’re celebrating more than the success of our malaria program, which has directly supported over a million patients to date. Rather, we’re emphasizing two fundamental ideas: a resilient health system isn’t designed to fight just one disease. And secondly, in order to harness the potential of private sector providers, we must also empower them to succeed—both as business owners and as trusted sources of care.
When providers thrive, so do their patients.
