2017 ICT4D Conference

The health system in Cameroon faces significant challenges of limited resources, poor access, inequity and poor quality of care. Similar to a number of other low and middle income countries Cameroonian government is moving towards adopting the goal of Universal Health Coverage with health insurance as the preferred approach. With a significant history of mutual health organizations in the country, Cameroon has had mixed experiences with insurance schemes catering to low income populations. A key reason for some of the failures has been the lack of professional insurance systems making schemes inefficient, non-transparent and prone to fraud. In such an environment church based Bamenda Ecclesiastical Provincial Health Assistance (BEPHA) schemes have undertaken restructuring and scaled up using Insurance Management Information System (IMIS) as the backbone of its operations. Currently operating with over 35000 insured individuals and over 120 health facilities, BEPHA is able to efficiently operate its schemes and is rapidly scaling up its operations by using mobile phones to undertake enrolment, renewal, feedback, client enquiry and claims management.

The Insurance Management Information System (IMIS) developed under a Swiss – Tanzanian cooperation project in Tanzania was provided to BEPHA free of cost by the Swiss Development Corporation. Since its transfer the system has been implemented in three countries and has a community developed around it which aims at further enhancing the system and making it available to all its users. This has allowed BEPHA to access an advanced insurance information system at low cost. The use of android phones and close adaptation of the system to paper forms has allowed for easy training and easy take up of the technology by the users and will further help with the scale up of the schemes.