Role of Focus Strategy in Performance of NHIF Accredited Hospitals in Kenya

Abstract

The mandate of the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) is to enable all Kenyans to access quality and affordable services. Consequently, NHIF accredited hospitals are positioned to facilitate the fulfilment of the said mandate, necessitating identification of competitive strategies employed by the hospitals for them to remain competitive. This study aimed at establishing the role of focus strategy on the performance of NHIF accredited hospitals within Kenya. A mixed research design was adopted based on non-experimental, descriptive and causal approaches taking into account both qualitative and quantitative techniques. The population of study comprised NHIF accredited hospitals with a bed capacity of 100 and above which stood at 150 hospitals as at July 2016. A sample of 109 hospitals was selected through stratified and convenient sampling techniques. Data was collected using semi structured questionnaires and interviewing schedules and administered to hospital administrators and CEO’s respectively of the sampled hospitals. Quantitative data collected from the questionnaires was analysed by the help of SPSS while the qualitative data from the CEOs was analysed using thematic content analysis. The results of the study revealed that there is a positive and significant relationship between the focus study and performance of hospitals based on the regression coefficient estimate found to be β= 0.646, P value of the coefficient estimate of the focus study which is less than 0.05 level of significance. The quantitative result was further validated by the CEOs responses that indicated that they focus on niche market that remained unexploited.