Last Mile Health specializes in working with governments to develop and manage national networks of professional Community Health Workers who bridge the gap between a country’s public sector health system and remote communities, bringing life-saving healthcare to the doorsteps of people who would otherwise be out of reach. Last Mile Health’s vision is global: a health worker within reach of everyone, everywhere.
Families who live far from rural health clinics suffer disproportionate rates of maternal and child mortality from preventable diseases.
Last Mile Health assures delivery of health services by well-trained community providers supported and supervised by the national Ministry of Health.
Raj Panjabi envisions collaboration among governments, NGOs, and finance agencies to support professionalized community health workers in all of the world’s remote communities.
National scale-up of the Last Mile Health model is expected to reach all of Liberia’s remote communities by 2020.
Throughout the developing world, governments, NGOs, and development finance institutions work in partnership to mobilize professional community health teams to ensure equitable access to quality healthcare in all remote communities, and prevent pandemic outbreaks.
Partnerships and independent replication. Catalyze a critical mass of exemplary community health systems through direct accompaniment to country governments in Ethiopia, Liberia, Malawi, and Sierra Leone. Through regional and global advocacy, document the business case for the model and provide technical assistance to partners.
Board Member, Skoll Foundation and President Emeritus, Last Mile Health
Dr. Raj Panjabi is Co-Founder and CEO of Last Mile Health and an Associate Physician at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital. At age nine, Raj escaped a civil war in his home country of Liberia. He returned in 2005 to work with the Liberia Ministry of Health, serving as an advisor to the deputy minister and as a clinician in rural government health facilities. In 2007, he founded Last Mile Health. Dr. Bernice Dahn, the Liberian Minister of Health, said, “Raj is seen as someone coming from the community.” Raj received the 2017 TED Prize and has been named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People, one of Fortune’s “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders”, and has been honored with fellowships from Forbes 400 Philanthropy, the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, and Echoing Green. In 2017, Raj and Last Mile Health were honored by the former President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, as a distinguished servant of the Republic of Liberia.
Since our founding, more than 5.8 million people have been served by Community Health Workers who were supervised, skilled, supplied, or salaried in partnership between a ministry of health and Last Mile Health. A 2022 study published in PLOS Global Health found that in Grand Bassa County, Liberia, where Last Mile Health has managed implementation of the national community health assistant program since 2018, care of childhood illness by a qualified provider increased by 60.3 percentage points more in areas where the national program has been implemented compared to areas where it has not.
This follows a 2018 study published in collaboration with Liberia’s Ministry of Health in the American Journal of Public Health‚ which demonstrated that properly trained, equipped, and remunerated Community Health Workers in Rivercess County drove greater treatment coverage and improvements in child health outcomes. Our Community Health Academy has reached more than 36,000 learners with content for health leaders and more than 13,000 learners in Ethiopia, Liberia, Uganda, and Sierra Leone with digital clinical education content.
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