Kisumu County Hospital Patient Demographic Analysis: Looking Toward Universal Health Coverage

Universal health coverage is priority sought after by developed and developing nations alike, and Kenya sits on the list of countries seeking to achieve this goal in the coming years. The definition of “coverage” can vary by country, but three criteria are commonly found in the discussion of UHC globally: access, affordability, and quality. Affordability is determined by the state’s healthcare financing system; quality refers to the services provided by health facilities; and access, at least in part, concerns the geographic placement of health services providers in relation to the population they intend to serve. This geographic element is the focus of this study. Using out-patient records from Kisumu County Hospital from July 2017 to June 2018, this study maps the geographic distribution of KCH patients and calculates the distances traveled to the health facility; the patient burden by gender, age, month, and diagnosis are also calculated. The results suggest that malaria consistently accounts for about 30 percent of KCH’s diagnosis burden; Nyalenda Estate sends the largest number of patients among any singular location, at nearly 20 percent, and the majority of patients, 54 percent, live within two to five kilometers of KCH