A Typology of Revenue Models for Community Health Worker Programs

Abstract

Community Health Workers (CHWs), a presence in almost every developing country, have proven instrumental in improving their communities’ health. CHWs in most countries are volunteers relying on programs with marginal government support and irregular external funding. A lack of incentives is a fundamental challenge to realizing the full potential of CHW programs. CHW programs often suffer from high attrition rates, poor efficiency and lack of coordination and accountability. This article argues that there is a dynamic interdependence between CHW programs and entrepreneurial mobile health (mHealth) systems trying to become economically self-sustaining. This interdependence can be leveraged to design effective, efficient and sustainable mHealth ventures that enable, complement and augment CHW programs with the shared objective of improving the healthcare system in developing countries. This article presents a typology of eight business models where CHWs function as the channels and champions for mHealth ventures. The target audiences of this article are innovators and entrepreneurs seeking to launch sustainable mHealth ventures by leveraging the civic infrastructure of community health workers in developing countries.