by Karl Hofmann, PSI President & CEO
It isn’t enough to talk about failing fast, being transparent and sharing insights. You have to take risks and then, regardless of the wins or loses, feel comfortable enough to let people know the lessons you learned. In wrapping up PSI’s most recent strategic plan, which stretched from 2012 to 2016, we aimed high and often hit the mark and sometimes didn’t.
But as we embark on a shift to reimagine healthcare by putting the consumer at the center, and whenever possible, bring care to the front door, we’re taking stock of what we’ve learned and hope that our peer organizations may benefit from our own course corrections.
Stretching Ourselves
PSI’s most recent strategic plan focused on improving relevance, scale, value, and measurement. We’ve long measured our success in Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) and Couple Years Protected (CYPs), like several of our contemporaries.
But over 2016, we analyzed the way we use these measurements. We now believe that framing our goals around how much the health needs of the women, girls and families’ we serve get met allows us to more accurately assess progress. In other words, we are instead measuring use over need.
Over the course of this era, we challenged ourselves to identify and address market inefficiencies, improve the quality of service among private providers, integrate service delivery, and sustain commodity supply and contraceptive security. Internally, PSI focused on improving financial resiliency, meeting network quality standards, and providing effective, innovative global services.
Our ambitions were greater than our achievements. We hit some strategic plan objectives and missed others — but we made progress on almost all.
Embracing Universal Health Coverage
The shift to measure the health of markets and our impact on them led PSI to a shared vision for shaping markets and impacting the global burden of disease. At the midpoint, we paused and refreshed the plan, introducing new elements that better aligned PSI’s operations with the global goal of achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
Because UHC requires more innovation to reach the poor and vulnerable, we’ve invested in social enterprise to reduce donor dependence and increase our adaptability. We also invested in our marketing function. We integrated service delivery and improved our tools for gathering evidence to help strengthen our relationship with governments, private sector channels and consumers. We strengthened our network, knowing that we are stronger when we are locally rooted and globally connected.
Ready for Tomorrow’s Challenges
The work accomplished in our 2012-2016 plan has positioned us well to embark on our next journey. The world will change dramatically over the next ten to fifteen years. Innovation in healthcare delivery models, medical and digital information technology offer a first line of healthcare that can be brought closer to the people we serve than ever before.
As we shift direction over the next decade, we’ll be taking those risks to test our course corrections, reporting both failures and successes and finding the strongest solutions to contribute to the body of global health knowledge and implementation. We look forward to sharing what it takes to reimagine healthcare, to put the consumer at the center of our work and wherever possible bring care right to the front door.
Banner photo: © Population Services International / Banner Photo by: Trevor Snapp
