Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) is the second National Referral Hospital in Kenya, playing a crucial role in providing healthcare services to a large population in western Kenya and neighboring countries. Located along Nandi Road in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu County, the hospital has a rich history dating back to its establishment in 1917.
Eldoret, Kenya
Early Beginnings and Evolution
Originally founded as the Native Cottage hospital, MTRH started with a bed capacity of 60. Over the years, it has evolved significantly and currently has a bed capacity of 550. The hospital serves a population of approximately 24 million from western Kenya and neighboring countries, including Kapenguria, Kapsowar, Kitale, Nandi, Kapsabet, and Tambach.
Association with Moi University
A major development in the hospital's history was its association with Moi University, established in 1984 as Kenya's second public university.
Индианский университет в Блумингтоне
This partnership has been instrumental in providing medical education and training. "Moi has been at the forefront of training," explains Dr. John Kibosia of Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital. "The facility was upgraded to a hospital to be a training facility for the medical students. It is the university which has made the hospital." Students in the College of Health Sciences receive training in curative and preventative health, both through hospital-based medicine and in community-oriented approaches.
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Challenges and Growth
The upgrade to a teaching and referral hospital was not without its challenges. As the center grew, patient numbers increased rapidly. Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital is one of only two level-six tertiary care centers in Kenya, the other being in Nairobi. As one of Kenya’s national referral hospitals, Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital serves a population of approximately 24 million from western Kenya and neighboring countries, and is the setting where students and residents get practical, hands-on experience.
One significant challenge has been maintaining adequate resources. "The Government decided to develop cold feet on this hospital. There were deals that were not forthcoming. The hospital could have been rendered useless - service delivery went down and most referrals were going to Kenyatta hospital," says Dr. Kibosia. "Moi hospital had been rendered insignificant and most of the talent was lost, but that is turning around currently."
AMPATH: A Collaborative Effort
Throughout the 1990s, an academic partnership flourished between Indiana University School of Medicine in the United States and Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya, providing Kenyan medical students with access to health care training. The AMPATH Consortium is a network of academic health centers that aims to foster long-term, equitable and cross-cultural partnerships with host health centers and universities that serve populations with significant unmet needs. This program continued to grow for several years until a severe outbreak of HIV/AIDS in Western Kenya caused the program to rethink its goals, at which point the Academic Model for Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS (AMPATH) was created.
AMPATH improves the health of people in underserved communities by working in partnership with academic health centers, ministries of health and others to build public sector health systems and promote well-being. All of our resources go toward supporting the Kenyan Ministry of Health in their mission of improving health systems across 10 counties in Kenya.
OpenMRS Implementation
In February 2006, AMPATH launched OpenMRS in Kenya, and PIH brought it to Rwinkwavu, Rwanda, in August of the same year. OpenMRS at AMPATH in Kenya has recorded over 111,000,000 points of data for over 180,000 patients, helping to save many thousands of lives between 2006 and 2011. From its humble beginnings as a solution to a problem in a small African town, OpenMRS has become the largest open source health care project on the planet.
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Current State and Future Prospects
Despite numerous challenges, MTRH has achieved many significant milestones. As the second-largest referral hospital in Kenya, Moi’s catchment area became a staggering 16.24 million people. In addition to plans for better patient care, Moi Teaching and Referrals Hospital works to give more back to the community it is based in.
The hospital is also home to the Shoe4Africa Children's Hospital, a 200-bed fully serviced paediatric teaching hospital that is built within its grounds and is the only public children's hospital in East Africa. The Cabinet Secretary Health, Madam Nakhumicha S. Wafula has lauded Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) and its leadership for being a model institution in quality healthcare service to Kenyans.
Research and Innovation
In the context of a long-term institutional ‘twinning’ partnership initiated by Indiana and Moi Universities more than 22 years ago, a vibrant program of research has arisen and grown in size and stature. From the very beginning, faculty and trainees from the Indiana University School of Medicine were involved in clinical care activities at Moi University and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital. This was based on a philosophy of “leading with care,” making continual improvement in health care delivery a primary focus of every engagement.
The AMPATH Research Network took advantage of the rapid growth of AMPATH patient enrollment. By the end of 2006, AMPATH had expanded to 16 sites in urban and rural western Kenya and had enrolled more than 45,000 HIV-infected patients. The amount and diversity of data collected by clinical and research activities grew exponentially.
As shown in Fig. 5, after a slow start as the research infrastructure was built, cumulative extramural funding from research and training grants and contracts has grown to exceed $65 million. To date, more than 186 articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals, and in many cases research results have impacted AMPATH’s health care delivery processes and outcomes.
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Cumulative Extramural Funding
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