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The Deadline is Coming. Clinics are Getting Ready.
By Kinya Kaunjuga
Almost all of Banda Health’s nearly 200 frontline clinic clients are bustling healthcare centers tucked into densely packed urban settlements. They are affordable lifelines—sanctuaries within walking distance for the mothers, children, and vulnerable families who are priced out of the city’s large hospitals. The clinicians here work hard to care for their neighbors. But right now, they are facing a daunting new reality: an urgent government mandate requiring all clinics to go fully digital by September just to keep their doors open.
For the 25 million Kenyans who rely on these low-resource clinics, the stakes couldn’t be higher. If a facility cannot digitize its records, billing, and reporting in time to meet the new national health insurance requirements, it loses its ability to remain financially sustainable. If the clinic goes under, the community loses its only safety net.
Digital operations are no longer optional.
Fortunately, this is exactly the future Banda has been preparing for.
Because of all of your quiet, steady support over the years, our clinic management system, BandaGo, is already built, tested, and ready for moments like this. Now, as uncertainty ripples across the healthcare landscape and clinics rush to digitize before the deadline, we are ready to sprint alongside them. Thanks for being a critical part of helping us scale to meet this mandate so no vulnerable patient is turned away.
And beyond today’s digital transition, you are also empowering us to look toward tomorrow’s horizon. The team is already testing tools like BandaAI to help clinicians elevate their diagnostic and treatment care while keeping their costs down!
But even as we build for tomorrow, clinics need to survive and thrive today. And it’s great to see clinics like Healpark Medical Hospital using BandaGo to do just that!
Healpark reflects the kind of low-resource healthcare facility Banda Health exists to support: a clinic working to serve its community while building the systems it needs to remain sustainable. Within nine months of adopting BandaGo as its clinic management system, Healpark has acquired a second facility and increased its revenue by 70%.
Impact and scale are not achieved through a single action. They are built through systems maintained every day by dedicated people working across landscapes, communities and institutions. Thank you for continuing to stand with them—and with us—as we build and improve the technology that helps more clinics provide quality care to some of the most vulnerable people in society.
The Policy Behind the Shift
If you are curious about the mechanics driving this sudden transition: The Kenyan government is currently undertaking a massive overhaul of its national health insurance system, now managed by the Social Health Authority (SHA). To streamline claims, eliminate paper records, and increase transparency, the Digital Health Agency (DHA) recently issued a strict directive. Facilities now have a tight deadline—September 1, 2026—to transition to government-accredited digital systems, or they will lose their ability to serve patients covered by the national health insurance fund.
Citations:
1.) World Health Organization / Kenya Ministry of Health Universal Health Coverage Data, 2023
2.) Digital Health Agency (DHA) Kenya, 2026 https://certification.
Kinya Kaunjuga
Kinya, our corporate storyteller, is an Aggie, and has lived and worked in Africa, Asia and North America. She’s met people from almost every part of the world and believes everybody has a story worth listening to.