Finalist
Addressing the Base of the Pyramid
Summary of work
In Nigeria, where healthcare services and accessibility are poor, diabetes exerts a high burden of disease. The lack of adequate doctor training in initiating and managing diabetes treatment is a major barrier to insulin use. Some public hospitals run diabetes clinics which attract large numbers of diabetes patients, but as a consequence of lack of time and resources, no personalised care is available, leading to ineffective insulin initiation and compliance. In addition, insulin is often sold to patients with excessive margins, making this essential drug unaffordable for the majority.
In order to overcome these barriers, Novo Nordisk has partnered with the largest secondary care hospital of Lagos State, General Hospital Ikorodu (GHI), a diabetes association (the Sunny Kuku foundation) and a blood glucose test provider (Roche) to create a one-stop-shop Diabetes Support Centre in the heart of the GHI. The Base of Pyramid initiative is making insulin available at the point of prescription as well as training diabetes educators to provide the necessary treatment information and improve compliance.
Patients are referred to the Diabetes Support Centre by the prescribers where personalised care, diabetes education and diabetes drugs are available, including insulin at a transparent and capped price.
Judges’ comments
There was undoubtedly good collaboration and true partnership here. The customer need was carefully identified, objectives were clearly defined and they have set up a fantastic baseline of the number of patients treated. However, as yet, it’s too early for us to see substantial evidence of real outcomes and so we look forward with interest to seeing this again in 2014.
