Improving Access to Healthcare

The Access to Healthcare initiative is part of our Sustainable Development – For Generations framework and is seeking to improve the lives of millions of people by focussing on both, human and animal health. With this initiative, we aim to improve the health outcomes for vulnerable communities, starting with availability and increasing access to safe, quality and effective prevention and care.

Our efforts are focused on areas in which Boehringer Ingelheim has the expertise and capability to create value for patients and society: Removing inequity in healthcare through access to healthcare, product donations and initiatives that improve the reach and quality of treatment, care, and education.

Boehringer Ingelheim is updating and advancing a number of projects and initiatives within the More Health pillar, reflecting the diversity of its patients and partners:

• The patient assistance and product donation initiatives have reached over 150.000 patients worldwide, across 77 countries on all continents.
• Supporting free clinics in several countries and employees volunteering as doctors, nurses and interpreters.  
• The Angels Initiative has enrolled over 5,400 ‘stroke-ready’ hospitals that have served 8.6 million patients to date with substantially improved care.
• The Kuza Afya program in Kenya screened approximately 79,000 people for hypertension and diabetes, trained over 500 healthcare professionals and offered a path to treatment for over 5,000 previously unserved patients.
• Launched a new initiative in Kenya as part of In Reach Africa program with PharmAccess to use mobile technology to address awareness and access barriers in hypertension and diabetes.
• Driving access to healthcare in low-resource countries together with the Defeat-NCD Partnership
• “Integrated Non-communicable diseases Care Model”, to support screening, diagnosis and access to treatments for cardiometabolic diseases for patients with low income starting in sub-Saharan Africa.
• The ‘Pathway’ health project fund in Canada will impact the lives of over 20,000 members of indigenous communities, addressing the excessive prevalence of certain non-communicable diseases in these communities.
• The Last Mile initiative, stretching across six countries in sub-Saharan Africa, has reached over 7,000 smallholder farmers, training them in leveraging access to healthcare solutions, vaccines and treatments to optimize the health and productivity of their livestock.
• Launched a new pilot program in Pakistan in collaboration with the OIE to eliminate rabies by donating the vaccine Rabisin^® and dog identification collars.

The Last Mile project

The Last Mile project, stretching across six countries in sub-Saharan Africa, has reached smallholder farmers, training them in leveraging access to healthcare solutions, vaccines and treatments to optimize the health and productivity of their livestock. The implementation of this project in Kenya had been carried out in steps during 2018-2020. It aims to make a significant impact on the smallholder animal health market in Africa where it is delivered by Boehringer Ingelheim, a leading player in the global animal health industry. The model has been tested as a pilot in several countries in 2015 under full sponsorship of MERIAL, now part of Boehringer Ingelheim. In the next phase, the project will be expanded to new territories and more focus will be given to the training of the teams, their transport and compensation, equipping them with the right veterinary tools and providing them with data managements systems. Focus on such aspects will help LLSP teams perform in a more efficient and safer way while improving the tracking of activities, as well as monitoring and evaluations.