Coordination Mechanisms and Implementation of Public Privatepartnership in Public Health Sector: A Case Study of Isiolo Sub County

Abstract

The public health sector has overtime been unable to effectively provide the badly needed health care to the public on its own owing to lack of resources and management challenges. The promise of universal coverage of health services financed through tax revenue has proved untenable in the face of increase in demand for quality health services and other competing demand for the same revenue. The need for properly structured and executed public private partnership has become a necessity. There has been growing concern that despite much presence and effort by public and private health actors over the years, nationally and in Isiolo Sub County, a number of health indicators are either on downward trend or have stagnated. The unacceptably high maternal mortality rate of 448/100,000 live births nationally (KDHS 2008), Isiolo county having the 5th highest maternal mortality in the country at 790/100,000 live births is a case in point. This has put to question how public private partnership in health sector has been conceived, structured, regulated and coordinated. This research therefore sought to establish how coordination mechanisms influence success of public private partnership in health sector in Isiolo Sub County, of Isiolo County. This will be a cross sectional study that involves a census of all health NGOs and health facilities operating in Isiolo Sub County. Health workers in all the twenty one (21) health facilities and workers of nine (9) Nongovernmental organizations supporting health services were the subject of the study. A structured questionnaire will be used to gather data. The questionnaires generated quantitative data, which was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics with the help of statistical software known as Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25 statistical software. Descriptive statistics comprised of frequency distribution, percentages, standard deviation and mean. Inferential data analysis was carried out using Pearson correlation coefficient and multivariate linear regression. The results indicated that coordination mechanisms has a positive and significant effect on implementation of public private partnership in the health sector in Isiolo Sub-County (β2=0.240, p value=0.002). The study concluded that an improvement in coordination mechanisms would lead to an implementation of public private partnership in the health sector. The study also recommends that the government of Kenya should organize workshops and training sessions specifically designed to educate stakeholders on partnership agreements. Further, the management of health sector in Kenya should foster a participatory approach by engaging key stakeholders from the public and private sectors, civil society organizations, and local communities.