The AKDN takes a broad, long-range approach to health that addresses
some of the chronic health issues in poor communities. It delivers
services directly by operating one of the largest non-profit, private
healthcare systems in the developing world – and has done so for over 60
years. It works to transform health care systems by training thousands
of nurses, midwives and doctors. It operates community health
projects, often in conjunction with rural development programmes, in
some of the poorest and remote areas of the planet.
Agha Khan Foundation Pakistan works to improve a community’s health by integrating behavioural change
in its related programmes -- for example, by teaching children in its
early childhood education programmes the importance of hand washing.
As its universities and teaching hospitals are located in the developing
world, it conducts research on the endemic and emerging health issues
of these areas, thereby contributing to the worldwide store of
knowledge. Its ultimate aim is to create efficient and appropriate
health systems that raise the quality of life of populations in the
developing world.
The AKDN’s work in Central and South Asia is marked by widely different experience: decades of conflict in Afghanistan, the demise of Soviet health care in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and the polarization of access to health care in Pakistan and India. To optimize resources and to ensure access to high-quality care even for those populations living in hard-to-reach places, the AKDN employs a “hubs and spokes” system of healthcare services whose reach transcends national borders. A high-level medical facility often staffed with education/ research faculty, a hub supports an array of health centres in rural and/ or urban areas. For example, through eHealth, the medical staff at the remote Khorog Diagnostic Unit in Tajikistan consults its peers in major AKDN university hospitals in Kabul and Karachi, to ensure more timely and effective diagnosis and treatment. Over the next 25 years, this hubs and spokes system will expand to improve the quality and reach of AKDN and government facilities in the region.
The AKDN’s work in Central and South Asia is marked by widely different experience: decades of conflict in Afghanistan, the demise of Soviet health care in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and the polarization of access to health care in Pakistan and India. To optimize resources and to ensure access to high-quality care even for those populations living in hard-to-reach places, the AKDN employs a “hubs and spokes” system of healthcare services whose reach transcends national borders. A high-level medical facility often staffed with education/ research faculty, a hub supports an array of health centres in rural and/ or urban areas. For example, through eHealth, the medical staff at the remote Khorog Diagnostic Unit in Tajikistan consults its peers in major AKDN university hospitals in Kabul and Karachi, to ensure more timely and effective diagnosis and treatment. Over the next 25 years, this hubs and spokes system will expand to improve the quality and reach of AKDN and government facilities in the region.
