Kenya Health Facility Levels 1 to 6, and the Software Each One Needs
Buying guides · 7 min read · Updated 2026-10-19
Kenya organises its health services in levels under the Kenya Essential Package for Health (KEPH). The level a facility sits at decides what services it offers, what it reports and, in practice, what it needs from a hospital system. Buying software without thinking about level is how a dispensary ends up paying for a theatre module, or a level 4 hospital ends up with a clinic system that has no wards.
The six levels
Level 1: community
Community health units, with community health promoters serving households. Mostly not a facility at all, but the start of the referral chain and a source of data on households, pregnancies, immunisation and follow-up.
Software needs: a simple mobile tool for community health work, and a way for facilities to receive referrals and assign follow-up.
Level 2: dispensaries and clinics
Outpatient care, basic treatment, immunisation, antenatal care and a small pharmacy. Many private clinics sit here too.
Software needs: registration, outpatient consultation, a simple pharmacy with stock control, billing with M-Pesa, immunisation and family planning registers, and the monthly MOH returns. Offline operation matters, because connectivity at this level is the least reliable.
Level 3: health centres
Wider outpatient services, a laboratory, maternity in many cases, and sometimes a small number of beds.
Software needs: everything at level 2, plus laboratory, maternity (antenatal, labour, postnatal), MOH 711 and IDSR reporting, and SHA claims.
Level 4: sub-county and primary hospitals
The first level with full inpatient care: wards, theatre, a fuller laboratory, imaging and a larger pharmacy.
Software needs: a full hospital management system. Admissions, wards and bed management, theatre, inpatient billing, radiology, insurance claims across several payers, and department-level access control.
Level 5: county referral hospitals
Specialist services, larger theatres, critical care and teaching.
Software needs: everything at level 4, plus specialist clinics, critical care, referrals in and out, multi-department reporting, and the scale to run hundreds of concurrent users.
Level 6: national referral hospitals
Tertiary and highly specialised care, such as Kenyatta National Hospital and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital. These usually run large, custom-integrated systems procured through formal tender, and are outside what most commercial HMS vendors, including us, are sized for today.
How level should shape a purchase
- Pay for the modules your level uses. A dispensary does not need theatre. A level 4 hospital that buys a clinic system will be replacing it within a year.
- Plan for the level you are becoming. A health centre adding beds should check the system it chooses has wards and inpatient billing ready to switch on.
- Reporting follows level. The MOH returns and IDSR obligations differ, and a system should know which apply. See KHIS monthly reporting.
How AfyaConnect uses level
Each facility on AfyaConnect records its level, category and ownership. The level decides which modules are offered, which setup steps apply and which MOH returns the facility produces, so a dispensary sees a dispensary's system and a level 5 hospital sees a hospital's. Plans are priced by scope, so a small facility is not paying for a referral hospital's modules. Read what a hospital system costs in Kenya, or register your facility.