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Operational Review: Aid for Aids
Operational review
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Well positioned for growth |
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We have over the past year strengthened
our collaboration with the South African
Government and continue to participate in
various projects aligned with the overall public
sector service improvement, and the NHI
readiness, in particular. |
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The AfA disease management system is
currently being evaluated by the CSIR for
potential deployment as a primary health
service tool in the public sector. |
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We are expanding the product offering to
include other chronic diseases, integrated
wellness offering and the development of a
retail product. |
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AfA is refining the current PPP venture to a
marketable alternative which could enable reach
to other markets. |
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AfA has invested time and resources in
consolidating the offering to corporates in
respect of supporting the roll-out of HIV/AIDS
strategies and workplace policies. |
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Overview of the business
The company’s main business is to manage healthcare benefits, specifically HIV benefits for medical aid schemes and
corporates. Furthermore, it also plays a role in collaborating with government led task teams and forums in terms of
challenging the epidemic, thereby extending its services to the public sector.
Our operational performance
AfA has registered and managed more than 220 000
patients on its programme since inception in 1998. This
represents the largest database of HIV patients managed in
the private sector. AfA currently has 32 clients. These include
15 medical schemes, 10 corporates, six international and a
public sector programme. The diagram alongside reflects the
distribution of beneficiaries registered on AfA by client type. |
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Process improvements
The improvement of operational processes in AfA is important
particularly as it enables the organisation to meet the Group’s
strategic goal to “defend, grow and diversify”. This is critical
as the market is increasingly competitive. AfA met and
exceeded the service level agreements with its clients in the
review period as it has done before and continues to strive
for excellence in its service offering. As a result of ongoing
reviews of the operational processes, the following innovations
were implemented in the period under review:
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Enhancement of the disease management system to
include a pre-registration module. This module facilitates
early enrolments onto the disease programme which is
critical for effective clinical management and adherence
monitoring. Patient adherence monitoring was enhanced
by incorporating antiretroviral therapy (“ART”) claims
summary directly from the administration system, thereby
facilitating risk management. |
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Conversion of outbound written communication to email
format has resulted in 97% of 8 913 doctors now using
email which has reduced printing and postage costs
significantly. This conversion project continues with
patients, where the uptake is much slower. |
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Considering the importance of healthcare providers as
key stakeholders in the healthcare funding industry, AfA
deployed an online training module. This tool provides
healthcare providers with up-to-date information
on management of HIV and other related pertinent
information. This initiative has been well received by
doctors as indicated by the high volumes which have
registered as well as feedback received. In addition,
the modules are accredited for continuing professional
development (“CPD”) points. |
 Clinical outcomes
Clinical outcomes are best measured by the extent to which
viral load (“VL”) results are submitted and the percentage of
patients who have suppressed their viral load. Overall, 86%
of AfA patients have a suppressed VL (undetectable viral
load). The AfA clinical outcomes match the ‘benchmark’ set
by a large community-based HIV treatment programme and
exceed the target of the National Strategic Plan for HIV/AIDS
(a target of 80% VL suppression after one year on treatment).
The benchmark referred to is the highly regarded Khayelitsha
treatment cohort which has been managed by Médecins Sans
Frontières (MSF), where result submission was 85% with 87%
of patients having their viral load suppressed.
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