Programs & Projects

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Gates Foundation) is making time-sensitive decisions for addressing challenges in primary healthcare, polio eradication and other priority areas. Light-touch research on efficiency and quality of healthcare delivery would add significant value for decision makers as they navigate a range of potential investment and implementation options. Given the quick pace and dynamic context, research should build on existing knowledge and tools, utilize small samples and rely on short feedback loops.

To address this need, WDI proposed conducting a set of discrete research activities. Each activity draws on WDI’s deep experience applying a business lens to healthcare challenges in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The activities include:

• Capturing both quantitative and qualitative data related to how problem solving, decision making and “running a business” is done at the district level, to better understand management practices and their effects on healthcare efficiency and quality.
• Utilizing WDI’s proof-of-concept simulation model to capture the effect of technology and/or process interventions on the efficiency and quality of immunization services in various LMIC healthcare settings.
• Evaluating the current state of the Gates Foundation’s investments in supply chain, and providing guidance on what future supply chain investments might look like

WDI research outputs to facilitate data-driven decisions by Gates Foundation staff, grantees and government partners, leading to more efficient and effective healthcare systems, is the primary outcome of the work.