Elevating Healthcare in Haiti

Skyler Badenoch is the Chief Executive Officer of Hope for Haiti, an organization that works to improve the quality of life for the Haitian people, particularly children. Skyler leads a team of 63 professionals who serve thousands of people in southern Haiti by helping improve education, healthcare, and economic opportunity.  

Prior to joining Hope for Haiti, Skyler worked for buildOn, where he spent 10 years managing school construction programs in Haiti, Nicaragua, and Malawi. At buildOn, he helped raise more than $10 million to support global education and the construction of more than 500 schools in the developing world. In 2010, Skyler served as a first responder while in country during the Haiti earthquake. 

Skyler was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cote d’Ivoire from 2001-2002. He received an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Arizona, and a Master’s degree in International Development Studies from the George Washington University. 

The objective of this project is to help solve inefficiencies and inequities in healthcare for 300,000 people living southern Haiti.

The project that I'm proposing is for applied research to answer the question of how can a network of 21 government, private, and non-government healthcare providers in southern Haiti develop and enhance communication and collaboration strategies to reduce chronic illness, prevent infectious disease, and improve health outcomes for people in the region?

Based on the findings of the applied research, Hope for Haiti and its partners will elevate humanity by developing a methodological framework (in Haitian Creole and English) to guide other regional based healthcare networks in communication and collaboration strategies aimed at improving specific health outcomes for people in other regions of Haiti and the developing world related to ALL communicable diseases including COVID-19, diabetes, hypertension, maternal and infant health, waterborne illness, oral health, and emergency care. 

Currently, Haiti reports some of the world’s most challenging health indicators, which have been exacerbated by the 2010 earthquake, Hurricane Mathew in 2016, and the most recent wave of political and civil unrest in 2019.

According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 40 percent of the population lack access to essential medical and oral health services. In the Americas, Haiti has the highest infant and maternal mortality, the worst rates of malnutrition, and a growing diabetes epidemic.  Currently, a quarter of Haitian children suffer from chronic malnutrition and acute respiratory infections, and waterborne illnesses cause half of the deaths in children under five years of age. There are complications in a quarter of the deliveries, with an estimated 76% of deliveries made by non-qualified personnel. More than half of the population has no access to drugs, and only half of the children in Haiti are vaccinated.

In addition to these challenges, many locally led healthcare providers in Haiti lack a formal framework for communication and collaboration with other providers when trying to seek specialized care, lab tests, surgeries, or other procedures for their patients. 

This project operates on the theory that if locally led healthcare providers in southern Haiti have better opportunities to meet in person, communicate using new technologies, and systematically collaborate to achieve common healthcare goals and solve prevalent health challenges, they will improve health outcomes for people living in the region, and develop a sustainable healthcare network of smaller locally led organizations that work together to achieve common health outcomes.

The core activities of this project will be undertaken to improve communication, cooperation, and coordination of Hope for Haiti and its healthcare partners by;

(1) Providing shared space for in-person communication and collaboration among healthcare leaders;

(2) Curating and providing financial stipends, medication, and medical supplies to locally led healthcare providers for their participation in the collaboration process;  

(3) Aligning the actions of Hope for Haiti and its partners to achieve tangible outputs and common healthcare outcomes, and

(4) Producing a methodology to be used by other healthcare providers in other regions of Haiti.

The southern department of Haiti currently has a population of more than 700,000 people.  Because of past natural disasters, political and civil unrest, and the social, economic, and health impacts caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, systems for healthcare are in critical need of support. Hospitals and medical clinics are reporting an acute shortage of medicine and supplies, and access to healthcare has become compromised.  

We have been intentional over the past decade to listen to our partners, community leaders, and patients. They have helped us identify the greatest healthcare needs in southern Haiti which include, but are not limited to: access to available medicine and medical supplies, better coordination between providers, and specific focus on the most prevalent communicable and non-communicable diseases. 

Hope for Haiti’s approach is to engage a consortium of 21 partner organizations that focus on improving healthcare outcomes in southern Haiti, and empower community leaders in to take an active role in improving the quality of and access to healthcare in the region.

This project hopes to address the healthcare needs in southern Haiti by facilitating collaboration among 21 healthcare partners, and increasing our capacity to meet the needs of the local population. 

This project aligns with The Elevate Prize by making an intentional investment in building awareness and driving action to solve major healthcare challenges in southern Haiti. 

This project has three main components that align with the Elevate Prize: 

Coordination: Elevate the ability of 21 healthcare providers in southern Haiti to come together to discuss ways to achieve common healthcare outcomes. 

Action: Elevate our collective ability to act together to solve common healthcare problems in southern Haiti. 

Advocacy and Information Sharing: Elevate healthcare networks in other by sharing and advocating for the adoption of best practices and lessons learned through action. 

The genesis of this project originally came to me as I was serving as a first responder during the 2010 Haiti earthquake. 

I arrived the day before the earthquake, and found myself working with a small team in a tent city of 10,000 people near the epicenter of the earthquake. 

During the 6 weeks that I spent as a first responder, I found that our team was able to make the greatest impact by coordinating with other organizations, sharing resources, empowering local healthcare professionals , and sharing patient load. 

Within days of the earthquake, we developed supply chain for valuable medication and medical supplies to be used by local Haitian doctors and nurses. We coordinated with Doctors without Borders and the General Hospital in Port au Prince to share patient load, and we developed a system for communicating needs and sharing valuable information about what was happening on the ground. 

This project uses the same formula for achieving better health outcomes for the people of Haiti: collaboration, collective action, and sharing best practices.

I have been working to help improve the quality of life for families in southern Haiti for the past 13 years. 

From my initial days working to help build nearly 100 new primary schools for remote villages in Haiti, to my time as a first responder in the Haiti earthquake, to my most recent role as Hope for Haiti's CEO, I have developed a passion for helping bridge the opportunity gap that exists in Haiti.  

This work is important to me because of my fundamental belief in the power of service.  Through my own personal life and professional experience, I have learned that we will get through challenging times by being in service to one another, to our families and friends, to our communities, and to others in this world who are less fortunate than we are. That has to be what heals us, sustains us, and drives us as we navigate the changes that are happening in the world. 

There are many issues that I am passionate about, and improving access to quality healthcare for families in southern Haiti is one of the most important because of its ability to alleviate extreme poverty. 

Many of my skills and past experiences will uniquely position me to help deliver on this project and improve health outcomes for people in Haiti. 

My experience in international development and global health began as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cote d'Ivoire, West Africa where I spent nearly two years working in a rural community to help improve water, sanitation, and hygiene. During this time, I learned the importance of cross cultural integration, empowering local leaders, and grass-roots community development. 

After the Peace Corps, I attended graduate school at the George Washington University's International Development Studies program. During this time, I learned how to effectively use logical frameworks for program design, work in small groups to achieve common goals, and design monitoring and evaluation methodologies.

After receiving my Master's Degree at GW, I joined the international non-profit, buildOn.  There, I managed teams in Haiti, Nicaragua, and Malawi in the construction of more than 500 primary schools. During this time, I gained expertise in project management, budgeting, and fundraising. 

Following my 10 years of employment at buildOn, I joined Hope for Haiti as the organization's CEO. During my 3.5 years as CEO, I strengthened the my expertise in collaborative leadership, organizational management, and coalition building. 

Throughout my personal and professional life, I have adopted and applied a set of core values which have helped me create positive organizational culture, set and achieve SMART goals, and learn from times when I've failed. These core values include: resilience, accountability, empowerment, collaboration, and hope. 

In the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, I was working with a small team in a 10,000 person tent city in Port au Prince. 

Two days after the quake, I met an elderly man name Martines who was abandoned in a field and suffering from a traumatic injury to his leg. His family fled to the Dominican Republic, he was alone, and he needed immediate medical attention that our team could not provide. 

After asking a local community leader, I was directed to a hospital two miles away that was being run by Doctors without Borders. The nurse at DWB told me that they couldn't help Martines until other patients were discharged and sent home. 

I volunteered to drive 4 of DWB's outpatients home using our truck if they would accept and cared for Martines. The nurse agreed, and we continued this agreement to help other critically hurt people for the next two weeks. 

These were incredibly challenging times, and being able to add value to the work of others ultimately helped us achieve our goal to help the critically injured. 

More than any other experience in my life, this taught me the value and effectiveness of servant leadership. 

In early March of 2020, the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a global pandemic. Like so many other non-profit organizations, Hope for Haiti was facing the reality of experiencing organizational disruptions, changes to some core activities, and a possible decrease in revenue due to the spread of the coronavirus and the massive changes in human behavior. 

In response, I worked directly with Hope for Haiti’s core leadership team to develop a unique organizational approach to our new reality. We quickly adopted modified operating principles, and conducted a situational SWOT analysis to tap into our strengths, address our weaknesses, take advantage of opportunities, and mitigate threats caused by the spread of Covid-19. 

Our healthcare team in Haiti used the results of the SWOT analysis to prioritize making an inventory of medication and medial supplies on hand, modifying our programming to fit health and safety protocols, and supporting our partners with information and medical supplies needed to fight the spread of Covid-19. 

In the spirit of collaboration, I reached out to three local non-profit organizations to share our process. I donated an hour of my time to each of these organizations to help them conduct their unique SWOT analysis. 

This project is innovative because it will feature new methods for collaboration to solve health challenges in the southern part of Haiti.
Specifically, this project will increased use of new technology and communication tools such as WhatsApp, Salesforce, TeroWorks, and a central EMR system by healthcare network leaders to collaborate to help prevent the spread of communicable diseases and mitigate other health challenges in the region.

This project is disruptive because it seeks to break a detrimental cycle of miscommunication and poor collaboration, while empowering healthcare leaders in southern Haiti to improve effectiveness and efficiency in order to solve pressing health challenges.

This project follows a detailed logical framework with clear inputs, outputs, outcomes, and impacts. The logic model also specifies verifiable indicators that will be used to track progress and success, and means of verification for how the data for those indicators will be collected and analyzed.

Project Inputs include the following:  

• Communication tools (cell phones, tablets, M&E Software), internet, vehicles, and convening venues.
• Support from Haitian Government officials.
• Staff and other health experts
• Partner staff and collaboration
• Funding

Project outputs include the following:

• Hire and train a network coordinator to support communication and collaboration across the network.
• Secure free medication and medical supplies from MSPP and international donors to be distributed throughout the network.
• Convene quarterly workshops for network sub-group leaders focused on diabetes, hypertension, waterborne illness, maternal and infant health, oral hygiene, and emergency healthcare.
• Convene quarterly workshops for healthcare leaders to facilitate communication and collaboration across the network.
• Develop and test methodological framework for strengthening healthcare partnerships and referral systems in southern Haiti.

Project Outcomes include the following:

• Established network of healthcare providers who actively share patient load, share resources, and collaborate to meet specific health challenges in southern Haiti.
• Increased use of new technology and communication tools used to by healthcare network leaders to collaborate. 
• Increased awareness among healthcare leaders of key health challenges in southern Haiti, and work being done by all partners in the network.
• Increased awareness among healthcare leaders in southern Haiti about strategies for communication and collaboration.

Project Impacts include the following:

• Expand access to quality healthcare through reliable referral and follow up care for an additional 100,000 Haitians.

The collective impact of the healthcare providers in our network is estimated at about 200,000 children and adults per year.

We believe that in one year, we'll be serving about 225,000 children and adults per year.

In five years, we aim to increase our reach to serving 300,000 children and adults per year.

My main impact goal is to help expand access to quality healthcare through reliable referral and follow up care for an additional 100,000 Haitians.

To do this, I would like to lead my organization in helping build and strengthen a network of government, private, and non-government healthcare providers in southern Haiti develop and enhance communication and collaboration strategies to reduce chronic illness, prevent infectious disease, and improve health outcomes for people in the region in the next 2-5 years.

Specific financial barriers to accomplishing my  goal above include donor fatigue, lack of funding, turnover of key fundraising support staff, and a competitive fundraising environment.

Specific barriers to accomplishing the project objectives include external factors such as natural disasters, political unrest, and civil unrest.

Hope for Haiti has developed a network of more than 25 healthcare partners in southern Haiti. We work with our partners in three main ways: (1) By sharing information about health challenges; (2) by supplying them with medication, medical supplies, and medical equipment; and (3) by occasionally sharing patient load. A short list of some of the key partners who have agreed to work with us on this project are listed below:

• MSPP (Haitian Ministry of Health): A representative from MSPP will provide support to this project through coordination and communication of project activities.

• The Dalton Foundation: The Dalton Foundation’s mission is to impact men, women, and children worldwide through education, training and access to improved healthcare.

• FHADIMAC: FHADIMAC is a Haitian government agency whose mission is to help people affected by Diabetes and High Blood Pressure to live better with their condition through education and good care.

• Maison de Naissance: Maison de Naissance’s mission is to significantly reduce maternal and infant mortality rates in underserved communities in Haiti. 

• OFATMA: OFATMA is a private hospital in Les Cayes, Haiti that serves more than 20,000 patients per year.

• Brenda Strafford Institute: The Institute Brenda Strafford in Les Cayes, Haiti, is an active treatment hospital employing 100 staff and physicians and typically sees an average of 4,000-5,000 patients per month.

• FONTEN: FONTEN is a non-profit professional rehabilitation clinic in Les Cayes Haiti that serves more than 5,000 patients per year.

Our integrated approach to healthcare focuses on strengthening local systems and networks, increasing access to medical professionals, medications, and medical supplies, increasing community participation in addressing healthcare challenges, and improving the quality of public health education so that patients are empowered with the knowledge and resources they need to manage healthcare for their families. We partner the Haitian Ministry of Health (MSPP) and other government agencies, local non-profits, and for profit clinics in Haiti to help improve the healthcare system in Haiti.

Hope for Haiti raises approximately $4-5 million USD in cash and $12-20 million in Gift in Kind each year to execute our strategic plan. Our funding comes from individuals, corporations, foundations, and special events. This revenue model has sustained our organization for more than 30 years.

Hope for Haiti's FY20 budget is $4.1 million USD and $20 million in Gift in Kind support from medication, medical supplies and medical equipment.

I'm applying for the Elevate Prize for three main reasons. First, I'm deeply committed to helping improve the quality of life for the Haitian people, particularly children. My life experiences in Haiti, my chosen career path, and my world view drive my commitment.

Second, I'm always inspired by becoming part of a network of people and organizations that share overlapping values such as resilience, empowerment of others, accountability to set goals, collaboration with others, and hope for a better world.

Lastly, I'm applying for the Elevate Prize because I believe it would be transformational for Hope for Haiti, our mission, and our ability to create and strengthen a network of healthcare providers in Southern Haiti who are committed to alleviating poverty and mitigating the region's most challenging health issues.