The Future of Health conference is a premier forum that holds annually to articulate the hopes and aspiration of Nigerians for their health sectors. The conference focused on the Business of Health thus giving room to explore the possibilities of applying wide-ranging business principles in the Nigerian public and private healthcare sector and how it can drive some of the improvements that the sectors need.
Attendees from major parts of the country gathered to pay attention to notable speakers share their individual insights on the business of health in Nigeria. Amongst these distinguished, was Dr. Omokhudu Idogho, Deputy Managing Director, Social Business Enterprise.
He was very pleased to reflect with the audience on ways to achieve “People Centered Care; the Heart of every Successful Enterprise”. He began by recounting how as a trained medical doctor he did not view health as a business but as a social good and his exposure in the public sector as overtime reinforced this notion. He added “Society for Family Health as an organisation uses the efficiencies of market to deliver social good. In this space, I have found what truly inspires. In the way we have constructed our Social business as an enterprise designed to address multiple health and social problem in a financially sustainable model.”
Omokhudu, continued by pinpointing the continuum of the health sector to have players who view the health sector in various ways for instance “ the private provider has dogmatic view of Health as a business; the NGO space and public sector on the other hand tends to take a narrow view of health as a social good but we as practitioners have lagged behind in taking on core business principles.”
He went on “Your customer is not anonymous- this is a key characteristic of every market. Also, customers have options. We may not approve of their options, but they have options anyway.”
He introduced Amina/Ngozi/Kemi, has SFH’s archetype (who may be a young woman, a mother). “we recognize that each is unique with aspiration, barriers, realities and lived experiences. We appreciate that she has choices even if we may not agree with them. These rich insights enable us to better align our service offering across the four Ps of marketing”
“Achieving People Centered Care in Health Enterprise is a combination of placing first-rate importance on the customer and, application of market efficiencies in the delivery of health services. Customer considerations should and must shape decisions on products & services, pricing, placement and promotion activities for products and services. At SFH we constantly ask these questions – will the product/service address Amina’s need; is the price right to ensure utilization, does the placement improve availability and access and lastly, will the promotion reach Amina and address her concerns and aspirations,” said Dr Omokhudu
“For this to happen, it will require a reconstruction of the social contract between citizens and government, politicians and the people. It will require moving from counting inputs to tracking output/results, from opaque gestures to truly having Nigeria put customers at the heart of our health enterprise,” he concluded.
SFH Nigeria as conference partner also marked its presence by exhibiting it wide range of exquisite life impacting products for sales and detailing. The event was well attended with the conference hall filled with a lot of enthusiastic people with bright ideas and goals hence hosting and attendance to this conference in subsequent years is highly encouraged.
