Dr Nicholas Crisp

The National Health Insurance Act is now a fait accompli, and has taken decades to reach the president’s desk. While there has been significant work undertaken on preparing the platform, the clock is now ticking towards the implementation of this immensely complex system. To get a sense of the progress, I spoke to Dr Nicholas Crisp, deputy director general, National Health Insurance at the National Department of Health, as well Milani Wolmarans, chief director: health systems digital information, about what kind of systems and technology the NHI will need.

There is much mention of getting the “building blocks” in place, but one thing that both officials say is that the health department is not going to be buying much vendor technology when it comes to the NHI. As Crisp says: “Everything is being developed in-house. Everything is ours and we own everything. We won’t be using vendors.” He adds that there will be “bits and pieces” that it will have to buy, and that large parts of the country did have connectivity.