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Joyce Sitonik @titikenya Joyce Sitonik

Dr. Joyce Sitonik is unwavering in her commitment to help reduce premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promoting mental health and well-being.

Dr. Sitonik is currently Head of Clinic Business Operations and AAR Wellness Program Coordinator. She has had a long career in Healthcare Management Programs both in the public and Private sectors in East Africa and Kenya in particular dating from as early as 2009 to date. AAR Healthcare Holdings of which AAR Healthcare Ltd is a subsidiary, is a medical service provider in East Africa that has been an active participant in the UN Global Compact since September 2008.

Dr. Sitonik is devoted to holistic and sustainable development projects that advance Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG 3). As part of her strategy to advance Global Goals through the company’s core business, she saw an opportunity for the company to leverage on existing technical capacity, brand positioning and heritage to view health risk management differently as a product. She lead in the design of tailor-made corporate wellness packages implemented through office based awareness and screening programs for Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and mental health.

She designed a clear process of linkage to specific interventions for high-risk cases and monitoring of response to interventions through wellness champions who manage over 1,000 patients. Working closely with the champions, she is able to receive timely reports on compliance to treatment, reviews by clinical specialist based on health risks and on serial laboratory tests to monitor progress. The program has had positive impact on cost of care to the patient because it enabled volume-based discounts on drug purchases, demand driven increase laboratory capacity (complexity of tests and number of machines), and growth in market share, brand equity and increase in net earnings.

AAR Wellness Program has resulted in a six-fold growth in the number of people screened for NCDs from just over 1,000 in 2016 to over 6,000 in 2018. The program has been able to successfully identify more than 100 cases with high risk for cancer and more than 500 new cases of high blood pressure. The commercialization of the program has been successful as it has yielded revenue reaching $350,000 in 2018.

Overall, the wellness program has high economic, environmental and social sustainability because all stakeholders find value in the program that is scalable and is already reducing hundreds of preventable deaths from NCDs.