Equitable Health Systems
Oxygen as a Service
Improving equitable access to medical care by using digitized solutions to efficiently manage medical oxygen delivery and availability.
What is the name of your solution?
Oxygen as a Service
Provide a one-line summary of your solution.
We are improving equitable access to medical care by using digitized solutions to efficiently manage medical oxygen delivery and availability.
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
Nigeria, according to UNICEF, contributes the highest number of pneumonia childhood-related mortality globally. Over 443 deaths are recorded per day, approximately 18 every hour. Pneumonia is a deadly disease that claims the lives of many children. While most developed nations have a reliable process to decrease pneumonia fatality, most underdeveloped countries still struggle. For example, in 2018, Nigeria recorded over 162,000 deaths to childhood pneumonia deaths.
This problem stems from poverty and limited health infrastructure. For example, in severe cases of pneumonia, the need for oxygen management is warranted; however, only a few urban hospitals in Sub-Saharan Africa possess the instrument required to confirm the diagnosis as well as treatment resources; rural health facilities lack these resources altogether.
The oxygen access problem is further compounded by the cost of oxygen to the hospital and the patient. Most hospital systems cannot afford larger oxygen plants, which affords the ability to produce oxygen for patient use more readily. As a result, hospitals depend on external plants to provide oxygen cylinders to treat patients. This comes at an expensive cost that is primarily unaffordable to the majority since out-of-pocket payment is the commonest option to pay for healthcare costs in Nigeria. With charges of $17/cylinder (3cu.m) to $80/day for critical patients and demand of payments before service, the process undoubtedly delays care delivery and hence results in poor patient outcomes. Furthermore, in many cases, when the patients can't afford it, they are deprived of the therapy entirely.
What is your solution?
HealthPort is working in partnership with LeanMed to bring "02 Cube" to help hospitals and smaller health clinics develop cost-effective and dependable models of oxygen production and care delivery to the patients.
O2Cube is a micro PSA (Pressure Swing Adsorption) that is solar-powered, which gives us the ability to continually fill oxygen cylinders with limited downtime. Furthermore, the system has a purity monitor sensor that sets off different alarms if the Oxygen being produced is below medical grade purity. This helps to ensure consistent quality. In addition, the system is equipped with telemetry components that empower us to monitor system performance in real-time.
When health systems are prepared to respond to a presenting emergency, it changes the clinician's attitude towards care and results in timely intervention to save a patient's life. HealthPort's product covers the infrastructure needed to produce Oxygen within the hospital and streamline Oxygen delivery at the bedside. This line of thought was what gave birth to our Oxygen as a Service solution.
Our "Oxygen as a a Service", (OaaS) product features include:
Infrastructure: We use solar-powered micro PSA equipment to generate medical-grade Oxygen to meet the needs of our partner hospitals. All our equipment is armed with telemetry apparatus, which remotely enables production/oxygen quality monitoring. This way, we can anticipate equipment issues before they arise to further strengthen our reliable oxygen delivery model.
Delivery - We consistently supply our hospital partners with high-purity medical Oxygen. Also, our Oxygen as a service model addresses hospital needs for oxygen cylinder availability, disposable delivery apparatus(i.e., face mask, nasal cannulas), and bedside piping, thus allowing Clinicians to maximize the use of each cylinder and treat multiple patients at once.
Costing: In addition, our solution maintains affordability as it is designed to suit the needs of low resources areas. Our partner hospitals do not pay any upfront cost for our services and typically enjoy low monthly service delivery costs, at least 30% lower than their usual monthly expenses. We aim to halve the cost of oxygen supply by building on our experience curve and if a novel costing model we aim to introduce is successful.
Our vision is to expand this critical medical resource to more areas and significantly reduce oxygen-related deaths.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Our current customers include Public and private hospitals, which are of secondary & primary levels, seeing patients ranging from severely ill to minimally ill. Patients remain our end beneficiaries; while our solution directly supports reducing under 5 mortality, we position our partner hospitals always to have enough oxygen to treat anyone presenting to the hospital with low blood oxygen or in respiratory distress. We aim to have a consistent oxygen supply and clinical support that can aid in prompt diagnosis and management.
Our target population is average Nigerians who already feel the impact of the economy, and out-of-pocket healthcare expenses become an additional layer of burden. Also, most of our health facilities cannot stock an adequate amount of medical oxygen ahead of time due to a lack of data on current oxygen utilization rates and the high upfront cost of stocking up. As a result, loss of life due to the unavailability of oxygen in hospitals is a regular occurrence in urban cities across Nigeria. We have seen three incidences of this reported this past week alone- where patients and loved ones are lamenting about the level of deprivation of oxygen therapy because of the patient's family's inability to afford the service's cost immediately.
With our O2Cube solution, inadequate oxygen availability will cease to be an issue in our partner hospitals, as the solution is designed for them to continually have more than required and guided by utilization trends. Also, our streamlined production process will decrease the cost of medical oxygen, making it more affordable to more patients/families.
The availability of more affordable medical grade oxygen will increase patients' ability to access required oxygen therapy without care delay. All these will result in reduced hypoxemia death, shorter stay in the hospital, and lower overall medical expenses.
How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?
Aishat Adeniji leads the HealthPort team; she is a Clinician with over 15 years of direct patient care in Fortune 100 companies and experience working with Early to Mid Stage US/Global Health Tech startups. Aisha has consulted with multiple international health companies implementing solutions in Nigeria, including the UNICEF Innovation lab. Growing up in Nigeria and working as a clinician in the US and Nigeria highlights a unique dynamic in implementing locally suited solutions informed by evidence and best practices.
Oladeji Sofoluke is a Co-Founder at HealthPort; he has experience working with private and public health hospitals in Nigeria as a Medical Lab scientist. His work spans implementing innovative solutions with established companies at the peak of COVID 19 and research data gathering to improve local data-guided public health interventions. Our clinical team, coupled with locally trained Engineers and Biomedical Engineers from the University of Pittsburgh, positions HealthPort for R&D. KC Amese and Demola Amao are seasoned entrepreneurs in Ghana and Nigeria, respectively, their work with HealthPort guides business development, customer integration, and growth. Our team is positioned to engage with our users constantly, and a lot of their feedback directly influences product development with our partners.
As we continually engage our partner health facilities to understand what works best for their patients, Our recently concluded Pilot has greatly informed us of the potential needs of our customers. Instances and preliminary results from the Pilot gave us a lot of insights on,
- What are the fundamental problems?
- The different solutions that can work.
- The best solution to achieve the customers' needs.
- The most preferred option(s) by the stakeholders (Hospital managers, Clinicians, Biotechnicians, and patients).
- Available great solutions that won't work due to local factors.
- The current situation and the points of pain that need to be addressed.
We regularly request for feedbacks from the Clinicians on our products, like, ease of use, dependability, availability and comparison to other options.
Gradually we are seeing some of the Clinicians having a preference for our products compared to the standard oxygen sourcing process. We also have one of our early adopters- a secondary level hospital, say they will personally market our product to colleagues.
In our engagement with stakeholders, we have interfaced with the Nigeria Federal Ministry of Health on our products in relation to the Nigeria's Oxygen 5 year scale-up policy which positions us for scalability and impact.
Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?
Build fundamental, resilient, and people-centered health infrastructure that makes essential services, equipment, and medicines more accessible and affordable for communities that are currently underserved;
Where our solution team is headquartered or located:
Abeokuta, NigeriaOur solution's stage of development:
PilotHow many people does your solution currently serve?
15 Hospitals and over 260,000 patients
Why are you applying to Solve?
Mentorship -We are seeking mentorship to improve our service offering for impact and scalability. The opportunity to collaborate and network will give us access to an ecosystem worthy of fueling our growth.
Funding access- Access to funding will help us improve our business development, allowing us to further our market reach.
In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?
Financial (e.g. improving accounting practices, pitching to investors)
Who is the Team Lead for your solution?
Aishat Adeniji
What makes your solution innovative?
HealthPort's patient-centric solution addresses all the steps involved in efficiently diagnosing and treating a patient needing medical oxygen. Unfortunately, most solutions at this time only address a subsection of the oxygen access problem, the need for an encompassing solution accessible to all would mirror an Oxygen as a Service (OaaS). Our solution is informed by what our customers have indicated as their most significant pain points when treating a patient needing oxygen. HealthPort's Oxygen as a Service was intentionally designed as a fit-for-purpose solution. It is designed to improve oxygen access problem using innovative solutions that addresses energy, skillset, and cost barrier.
Our OaaS is an all in one solution designed to include all oxygen therapy subsets, which includes;
Diagnosis: to ensure every hypoxemic patient is rightly and promptly diagnosed.
Treatment: Adequate and affordable medical-grade oxygen is always available, piped to the bedside.
Others: Solar power to ensure no downtime due to power failure and cheaper energy; Telemetry to remote monitor the production system; and Skilled technicians to attend promptly in any event of downtime or faulty system.
Affordability remains core to our service offering, so it mirrors service provision in other contexts with minimal upfront equipment cost but expanded customer reach through low monthly fees.
We believe the effects of our solution will include improved accessibility to oxygen therapy and can catalyze better pricing of medical oxygen from other providers, which will eventually result in more patients getting the necessary treatment.
What are your impact goals for the next year and the next five years, and how will you achieve them?
12 Month Goals:
1. Grow to impact 500,000 patients in urban and rural settings across Nigeria
2. Onboard at least 10 additional hospitals
3. Consistently producing and distributing 800,000L of medical oxygen per month.
4. Reduce hypoxia-related mortality by 50% at partner hospitals.
5. Distributed more than 2million L of medical oxygen already.
We will achieve this by deploying O2Cube 2.0, micro PSA plant with an opportunity to increase in-house oxygen production to 4x the current capacity.
5 Year Goals:
Expand Oxygen as a Service to 2-3 other Sub-Saharan Africa countries with an opportunity to reach 10 million + patients. We will also establish our care coordination platform, allowing streamlined patient transfer and strengthening country-level medical oxygen infrastructure.
Our recently concluded Pilot has greatly informed us of the potential needs of our customers. We have provided consistent oxygen availability with the Pilot using concentrators in the emergency department and micro PSA-filled cylinders in the pediatric ward. Given the vastness of the medical oxygen space we are confident of the potential to increase our service offerings to better prepare our partner hospitals while creating a wider reach and multiple revenue streams.
How are you measuring your progress toward your impact goals?
Our current metrics are Converted Interested Leads, Equipment Reinstatement, Equipment Down Time, Number of patients accessing medical oxygen.
- Customer conversion: We have partnered with 2 State-level hospitals, each seeing over 7,000 patients per month.
- Oxygen Equipments Reinstated- We have repaired and reinstated 56 medical oxygen equipment across 15 hospitals in Nigeria.
- Equipment Downtime - We have recorded a 92% reduction in equipment downtime through Preventive maintenance.
- Number of Patients Accessing Oxygen: 1 of our partner hospitals has a recorded 98% oxygen access rate since signing on to be a Beta User of the 02 Cube under HealthPort Oxygen as a Service. The 2nd hospital is in the process of installation and aggregating data.
What is your theory of change?
Reliable Health System: HealthPort improves access to prompt oxygen therapy using low-cost and reliable devices. Our streamlined approach to providing infrastructure as a service to hospitals allows hospitals to offer quality care without the burden of high upfront costs. Empowering our hospital partners with ready-to-use devices will enable clinicians to focus on patient care without delay in recommending treatment out of concerns about resource availability or patients' ability to afford therapy. HealthPort will install, maintain and replace devices as needed. Our clinical support team will also ascertain that oxygen therapy is optimized to improve patient outcomes. Our assumptions, partly confirmed by our pilot, are
1. Availability of micro PSA plants producing in house oxygen will decrease care delay and increase utilization.
2. We will be able to advise hospitals through our remote device monitoring on unique trends in oxygen usage.
3. A solar-powered in-house oxygen system will eliminate oxygen sourcing redundancies, distribution bottlenecks, and cost.
4. There will be improved patient outcomes and reduced length of stay due to prompt diagnosis and management
Reduced Patient Cost: Patients do not have to be burdened by the cost of oxygen production and distribution. Having an oxygen system piped to the bedside will eliminate the current process where patients are tasked with sourcing their oxygen cylinder- a convoluted process, expensive with high upfront costs, and no way to verify the quality of oxygen purity. Our assumptions are
1. Patients will readily accept oxygen therapy when a physician recommends it.
2. Will report to the hospital with increased confidence that the hospital is positioned to treat them
3. Prompt management will reduce the economic impacts of healthcare on families resulting from the reduction in length of hospital stay, lost workdays, and associated treatment costs.
Describe the core technology that powers your solution.
The core technology of our solution is powered by bioengineering removal of nitrogen (N) from the free air. This is achieved by pressurizing ambient air through a molecular sieve that filters out nitrogen under pressure. The removed nitrogen is vented back to air by releasing the pressure while oxygen enriched air is directed to filling the cylinder through a dedicated ultrafill system. The components of the Micro PSA includes a motor control/drive circuitry for the air compressor, signal control circuitry for sensors, power management circuitry and a telemetry enabled user interface. This device is powered by non-fossil energy, solar power.
Which of the following categories best describes your solution?
A new business model or process that relies on technology to be successful
Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:
Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your solution address?
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
How many people work on your solution team?
4 FT, 2 PT, 2 Contractors
How long have you been working on your solution?
2 years
What is your approach to incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusivity into your work?
The HealthPort team is female-led and comprises individuals in 4 countries and two continents. We are mindful of our recruiting process and ensure a diverse cross-selection of talents to build our team. We support our team members to grow individually while also welcoming their contributions and openness in informing how our business is morphed. Pay equity and cultural/religious holidays are huge for us. We ascertain this by constantly evaluating and ensuring that our team members working in similar roles and having comparable responsibilities are compensated equally. This includes pay and access to celebrating unique holidays. We pride ourselves on having a flexible organizational culture- including opportunities for remote work, promoting a conducive work-life balance.
What is your business model?
Our business model is a product addressing the unavailability or insufficient medical Oxygen for patient therapy in primary and secondary health facilities.
The product we are providing is Oxygen as a service (OaaS). With this, we ensure all our client facilities have all essential oxygen therapy resources available at all times Clinicians/patients require them.
Our OaaS components include;
- Diagnostic resources, viz, Pulse oximeter and Oxygen therapy Algorithms.
- Human capital development, viz, Client personnel professional training on every aspect of Oxygen therapy.
- Medical oxygen infrastructure, viz, production equipment/plant, e.g., O2Cube, oxygen cylinders, facility distribution infrastructure, etc.
- Support services, viz, Clinical, e.g., Respiratory technicians, Technical, e.g., Biomedical engineers and technicians.
- Commodities, viz, nasal cannula, oxygen masks, etc.
These are all bundled together and charged as such.
Do you primarily provide products or services directly to individuals, to other organizations, or to the government?
Organizations (B2B)What is your plan for becoming financially sustainable?
Our OaaS business will be providing medical oxygen to subscribed health facilities for onward sale to their patients. We will be providing these services at a unit cost to our partners, which will determine the invoice we will issue and claim from each of the facilities in our clientele base. We will draw up a supply contract of one year with every of our partner health facilities. In dire cases this can't be effective, maybe due to peculiarities and norms in the location, we will demand at least six(6) months contract with guarantee for renewal for another 6 months, except in the case of irreconcilable differences. Optimizing and managing each facility's oxygen infrastructure and services will also be part of our responsibilities. All infrastructure will belong to HealthPort.
We will also cover service contracts for oxygen equipment maintenance and repair. These will be our primary streams of income.
Then due to how big our product is in the social enterprise sector, we will continually apply to non-equity funding/grants that are worth it, especially for our R&D Department.
These will be our main channels of funding funnels till metrics and reality demands for more.
Solution Team
-
Aishat Adeniji CEO and Co-Founder, HealthPort
-
Oladeji Ṣofolukẹ HealthPort
to Top
Our Organization
HEALTHPORT