The Social Health Authority (SHA) has announced a nationwide service disruption of its digital systems, affecting hospital pre-authorisation services.
In a statement on March 2, SHA CEO Dr Mercy Mwang’ang’i stated that the outage, which began on Sunday, March 1, has crippled hospital processes at contracted healthcare facilities countrywide.
This directly affects how quickly patients receive approvals for treatment.
According to the agency, the disruption is caused by a downtime affecting the Digital Health Agency’s services.
“This is to formally notify you of a service interruption and downtime affecting the Digital Health Agency’s services, which are critical to the Social Health Authority (SHA) operations. We have received notification from our service provider, Digital Health Agency, indicating a major incident leading to significant system unavailability,” SHA said.
SHA’s patient pre-authorisation service acts as a digital gatekeeping mechanism, ensuring high-cost or specialised medical procedures are approved for coverage before any treatment is administered to a patient.
It guarantees financial coverage, prevents claim denials, and confirms that medical interventions are both necessary and aligned with the SHA Benefits Package and Tariffs.
SHA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr Mercy Mwangangi has personally addressed the situation, assuring the public that resolving the crisis is the authority’s top priority at this moment.
“Our technical teams, in close collaboration with the Digital Health Agency, are fully mobilised and working with the highest urgency to identify the root cause and restore full functionality,” Dr Mwangangi stated.
She also acknowledged the human cost of the disruption and that the SHA management fully understands the critical nature of these services for Kenyans’ daily operations and patient care.
“We understand the critical nature of these services for your daily operations and patient care, and we sincerely apologise for the significant inconvenience and disruption this is causing,” stated Dr Mercy Mwangangi.
In the very same notice, SHA stressed that updates will be shared regularly with healthcare providers and the public until services are fully and reliably restored, with no official timeline for restoration having been provided yet.
