Our One-Million Milestone

By Jessica Vernon , MD

For the first time, Maisha Meds hit a new milestone: People visited the private drug shops, pharmacies, and clinics that use our software across Africa over a million times in just 30 days.

This achievement is not just a number. It's a story of innovation and a commitment to better health care. It means pharmacy owners are seeing the benefit of our best-in-class software. It means we have richer data to design programs that meet patients where they go to receive care. And for some of these visits, it means we provide reimbursements that improve care and accessibility in areas like malaria, family planning, and HIV prevention.

Our recipe is hardly a secret, but each ingredient must be top-notch and bring together a diverse blend of skills and passions.

Our recipe merges novel tech with proven strategies for delivering health care in areas that each have their own strengths and obstacles. This means constantly testing and building new features that cater to our pharmacy users, while maintaining robust operations on the ground in Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria. 

Our recipe also includes strong partnerships, from global health funders and government agencies down to county and district offices, pharmacy associations, and community leaders. It’s no surprise that some public health facilities have discovered and are using our software, too.

“To enhance accountability and transparency of health products and technologies,” Makueni County Governor Mutula Kilonzo Jr. announced in December that the county government had “acquired a digital health commodities management system called Maisha Meds.”

“The pilot phase was a huge success,” he said in his State of County Address. “We should have walked this journey a long time ago.”

And our journey is far from over. We’re looking forward to even more expansion in 2024 with support from partners including USAID Development Innovation Ventures and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And we’re excited to design new programs and rigorously evaluate how effectively they advance our mission and values — such as our ongoing research trial in HIV PrEP. 

A million patient visits in a single month is just the beginning.

Dr. Jessica Vernon is the CEO of Maisha Meds, an organization that builds technology for private pharmacies and clinics — a first point of care for millions across Africa.