Africa: Where Innovation Begins (2)

Previous Post we looked at the growth potential of the African continent and the necessity for improving medical systems to foster such growth. But specifically, which parts of the medical system need improvement? There are several issues, but the most representative and encompassing problem is the lack of medical accessibility.

The phrase “lack of medical accessibility” carries multiple meanings. One of them is that it isn’t easy for people to visit doctors. This is well reflected in a WHO survey, which shows that with few exceptions, the ratio of doctors per 1,000 people in African countries does not exceed 0.5. For reference, this figure is 2.2 in South Korea, 2.5 in the United States, and exceeds 3.0 in most Western European countries.

Additionally, the infrastructure for medical systems is not well-established. Not only is there a shortage of doctors, but the roads needed for transporting emergency patients are also inadequate, and there’s a shortage of hospitals. Many African healthcare startups focus on resolving these issues. Let’s take a closer look at what efforts are being made at the private level to improve these issues by examining healthcare startups.

1. KEA Medicals

Imagine a scenario where a mother, during childbirth, is in urgent need of a blood transfusion due to severe bleeding. However, the mother does not remember her blood type. Even though her blood was tested twice in the past, her blood type cannot be found anywhere. Repeating the blood test would cost $4, but the mother cannot afford this cost. [2] In such a situation, wouldn’t it be crucial to have a reliable method for storing and later retrieving her health information, past medical history, and emergency contact details?

Figure 1. KEA Medicals’ logo.

KEA Medicals is a startup from Benin that was launched to solve such problems after witnessing the above scenario. The occurrence of such incidents is multifaceted. It’s partly because information sharing between field and hospital is not smooth, and it’s also related to the low insurance coverage rate of 15% in Africa. These issues make it difficult for medical staff to accurately understand the patient’s medical information and respond appropriately in emergency situations.

KEA Medicals aims to solve these medical realities by utilizing mobile phones to store individual health information. This solution is feasible because the mobile device penetration rate in Africa is about 80%. When users input their information into the KEA Medicals database through a mobile app, a QR code that allows access to the data is embedded in a low-cost bracelet or sticker and given to the user. Through this system, in emergency situations, a bystander can scan the QR code and swiftly and accurately respond based on the user’s health information.

Figure 2. One of the services provided by KEA Medicals, allowing easy access to the wearer’s health information via a QR code on a bracelet. [3]

KEA Medicals is not only expanding in Benin but also into countries such as Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Senegal, and Tunisia. Furthermore, KEA Medicals plans to utilize blockchain and AI technologies in the future to build easily verifiable and tamper-resistant databases and help hospitals manage electronic medical records (EMRs) efficiently. [4]

2. Recomed

Recomed is an internet-based hospital reservation platform designed by a South African startup. Have you ever searched for a restaurant online? Websites like OpenTable provide convenient platforms that allow you to search for restaurants and make reservations all in one place. Similarly, Recomed allows users to search for and book the hospital of their choice, anytime and anywhere. [5]

Figure 3. With the Recomed app, users can easily search for and book hospitals specializing in various fields.

Recomed users can make a reservation at their desired hospital in just about 30 seconds through a mobile phone or computer. By searching the hospitals, clicking on the desired one, and selecting the preferred time slot displayed, the reservation is complete. There’s no longer a need to call and make a reservation during hospital operating hours. Moreover, Recomed’s search engine also provides profiles of each doctor, allowing users to know beforehand which specialist might be a good match for them.

For such a system to operate smoothly, the participation of doctors is necessary. Doctors voluntarily need to register their information and synchronize their schedules with Recomed. To incentivize doctors to join despite this inconvenience, Recomed offers a few perks.

Figure 4. Users can view doctors’ schedules and profiles before booking through Recomed.

One of these perks is a neat scheduling interface. Recomed provides doctors with a webpage and a clean schedule management tool that automatically syncs with Recomed. Unlike phone reservations that require human intervention, Recomed’s scheduling tool updates automatically when a patient books a specific time slot, reducing manual workload. Just like how it makes it easier for users to book hospital appointments, it also reduces the workload at the hospital. Additionally, Recomed sends periodic reservation confirmation messages to users to minimize the ‘no-show’ rate. [6]

Recomed is currently expanding beyond South Africa, showcasing its platform in several Sub-Saharan countries. Offering the advantage of flexibly coordinating schedules between patients and hospitals, Recomed is a compelling solution. The emergence of a platform like Recomed, which allows hospital reservations with just a few clicks, seems almost inevitable in this era of widespread smartphone and internet use. In the future, a system similar to Recomed may also come to our country and become the standard.

3. Zipline

The most significant factor contributing to the lack of medical accessibility in Africa, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, is the underdeveloped transportation system. Unpaved roads, rugged mountain paths, dense jungles. The resulting lack of transportation infrastructure and the difficulty of responding to emergencies are issues faced by many African countries. In fact, about 2 billion people worldwide struggle to receive medical supplies and medications for various reasons. [7]

Zipline is the company aiming to revolutionize this situation. Their solution is simple and intuitive. If there are no roads, why not avoid using them? Their answer is a drone delivery system for medical supplies. When a request for medical supplies (mainly blood for transfusion) is made, the distribution center of Zipline packs the supplies into a drone and drops them at the target site. To help understand, please watch the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnKnMgWy_tM

Video 1. How Zipline delivers medical supplies from the distribution center to the hospital.

Zipline’s drone-based delivery system for medical supplies has significantly reduced the supply time from several hours to an average of 30 minutes. It’s also easy to place orders via text message or WhatsApp, making the ordering process straightforward. The drones used by Zipline can fly around 80km and can even operate in bad weather. With collaboration from the logistics giant UPS, Zipline’s drones can drop supplies at the order location with an accuracy of about two car parking spaces.

Figure 5. Zipline’s delivery drone dropping supplies at the target location [8]

Based in Silicon Valley in the United States, Zipline is currently working with Rwanda’s Ministry of Health to assist hospitals in Rwanda where medical supply delivery was a significant challenge. Zipline contributes notably to ensuring a stable blood supply for treating postpartum hemorrhage, the leading cause of death for African women living in Sub-Saharan Africa. [9]

Zipline plans to expand its market beyond Rwanda to Tanzania, aiming to supply medical products to around 1,000 hospitals through four Zipline distribution centers. [10] There is hope that Zipline can solve the low medical accessibility issue due to transportation infrastructure shortcomings faced by many Sub-Saharan countries.

4. Conclusion

In this article, we examined a few healthcare companies in Africa and how they are trying to solve the problem of low medical accessibility. Although only three examples were discussed, there are numerous other companies striving to solve these problems in various ways.

The methods used by the companies mentioned in this article may be unfamiliar to us. This is because they attempt to solve the medical accessibility issue through new technologies rather than existing methods. Whether these startups, along with those pushing for innovation to improve Africa’s medical reality, will continue to develop into new standards or face realistic challenges and collapse remains uncertain.

However, if Africa’s growth involves the improvement of the healthcare system and population growth over the coming decades, as mentioned in the previous article, it is highly possible that a more innovative system might become the new global standard rather than the medical delivery system familiar to us today. It is even plausible that the country setting these new healthcare standards could be an African nation rather than an Asian or Western country. With this cautious assertion, I conclude this article.

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References

[1] http://www.who.int/gho/health_workforce/physicians_density/en/

[2] https://fastercapital.com/accelerated/kea-medicals.html

[3] https://www.keamedicals.com/?lightbox=dataItem-jefq6om26

[4] https://innovator.news/how-tech-is-tackling-africas-healthcare-challenges-130f065b3d8a

[5] https://www.recomed.co.za/about/

[6] https://www.recomed.co.za/features/

[7] http://www.flyzipline.com/

[8] http://www.siliconbeat.com/2016/11/11/drone-start-up-zipline-raises-25-million-expand-on-demand-blood-deliveries/

[9] “Postpartum hemorrhage: incidence, risk factors, and outcomes in a low-resource setting” International journal of women’s health vol. 8 647-650. 2 Nov. 2016, doi:10.2147/IJWH.S119232

[10] https://www.forbes.com/sites/leifwalcutt/2017/08/24/zipline-is-launching-the-worlds-largest-drone-delivery-network-in-tanzania/#15662887293b