Rev. Mark Lancaster wrote this post. He has spent years working in international development programs. His background in worldwide faith based health initiatives gives him a unique perspective in guiding EHRI’s international programs. Mark’s spirit informs the company’s mission for serving the poor and challenged hospitals in the world.
I leave Feb. 21, for a month to visit with hospitals and clinics throughout Africa. After working in the developing world for more than 25 years, especially in Africa, it is clear to me that there is a growing need for improved health care and a more transparent health care infrastructure. What is new is that there is also now a growing market demand where we can practice “doing well by doing good.”
Our goal is to work with large networks of hospitals and clinics across the developing world, specifically with faith-based institutions since faith communities created most of the hospitals in the developing world. For instance, the United Methodist Church has 300 hospitals in Africa alone, not to mention their health care institutions throughout the rest of the world. The 7th Day Adventists created 180 hospitals outside of North America and Europe and there are similar numbers for Presbyterians, Lutherans, Mormons, Anglicans, Independents and even more for Roman Catholics. We are building relationships with these groups, and I will be visiting many of their hospitals during my upcoming travels.
Part of my task while traveling in Africa is to build trusted relationships not just with the hospitals and clinics, but also with the Ecclesiastical structures that oversee them. I will have time with Bishops, Archbishops, and other Church leaders in most of the countries I intend t o visit. Since there is a movement toward engaging the local leadership, these faith leaders will have great influence on the U.S. church agencies that provide funding for their hospitals and clinics. It is they who will decide if their institutions take the plunge into the use of 21st century technology to improve health outcomes for their people and to assure financial and managerial stability of their health care institutions.
There are also a growing number of large NGOs based in African countries. They are locally developed groups that bring expertise in areas of management like health care. In Uganda and Tanzania, for instance, there are two such organizations that have an administrative relationship with nearly half of all hospitals in those countries. Additionally, they have good connections with their national Ministries of Health, which we also want to build relationships with. The Enneagram personality test.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, I will be spending time with a large International NGO that is working with the Ministry of Health to reform their entire Health Care Infrastructure with a grant of $300 million from the British Government. We will discuss the possibility that EHRI can bring software and technical expertise to bear as a partner with them to further improve the outcomes they are set to achieve. I am very hopeful about this discussion.
I will follow-up with you in the near future to inform you of our progresstowardadvancing global health. Thank you for your support as we engage in this compassionate, smart, and bold move into the use of 21st century health care tools, alongside our partners in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Blessings+
Rev. Mark Lancaster