One-line solution summary:
Free, dynamic digital health platform increasing access to affordable quality healthcare and building resilient health systems globally .
Pitch your solution.
As COVID-19 has demonstrated, health systems world-wide struggle to prepare for and address public health emergencies. This is caused by the fragmented and scarce access to health information of countries' populations.
The mission of PocketPatientMD (PPMD) is to improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare systems, especially in low-income countries, by providing the technological infrastructure to digitally connect each node of the healthcare sector, facilitating more data-driven decision-making. PPMD offers a free, interoperable, integrable and customizable digital health platform, available in 6 languages offline and online.
The platform impacts:
- Patients better manage health, improving compliance
- Physicians and health professionals provide better, more affordable healthcare, reducing wasted time and resources
- Governments build stronger healthcare systems based on evidence with an increased capacity to address public health emergencies with access to real-time health information of populations
- Global supply chain of medical resources is improved with reduction of wasted resources and improved logistics
What specific problem are you solving?
Despite an increasing adoption of digital health systems globally, stakeholders across the public health ecosystem still lack the much needed health information in order to build more resilient health systems. This is caused by the lack of interoperability of electronic health records (EHR), leading to a fragmentation of the health ecosystem, preventing health information exchange and thus impeding the quality of care and wasting resources. While this problem affects most of countries around the world, we primarily focus on low and middle income regions, where the health systems are just at the beginning of digitization and the need for interoperable health systems meets the need for affordable digital solutions.
Furthermore, as result of the lack of health data, the global supply chain of medical material is highly inefficient: up to 40% of vaccines are inefficient globally as the result of inappropriate logistics and storage, resulted from the lack of health data.
Factors relating to our solutions: lack of access to accurate, verifiable health information by healthcare stakeholders at different levels; lack of transparency and accountable information
Shortfalls of current solutions and existing EMRs: not doctor-friendly, lack interoperability, not customizable, expensive, significant data fragmentation
What is your solution?
PocketPatientMD is a a free, secure and dynamic digital health platform that:
- connects each stakeholder in the healthcare ecosystem
- empowers patients to manage their health
- enables physicians to easily manage digital patients records
- provides ministries of health with health insights in near real-time, including tracking outbreaks and reportable diseases
- generates economic and social value beyond the health sector, including significant savings reducing impact of healthcare on GDP
The success of PPMD lies in the satisfaction of physicians-users. It has thus been conceived with physicians, it is constantly updated based on the physicians feedback and customizable to always satisfy the needs of users.
The platform is completely interoperable and integrable with existing systems to allow information-sharing. Apart from online, the platform is available offline to reach the most remote areas and ensure a continuous work.
Unlike similar (non-customizable) systems that generally cost a country over US$ 1billion, PPMD always remains free for patients, doctors and governments. We have developed an alternative business model, where manufacturers and distributors of health products and equipment pay for anonymized and aggregated reports of inventory levels, unmet needs and emerging trends, to improve global supply chain and guarantee access to health information in resource-limited contexts.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
PPMD's main target are low- and middle-income countries. Starting in Africa, where we have personally visited 35+ countries to understand the needs of local health systems and engage with high-level public officials, we are currently expanding to South-East Asia and South and Central America.
Our mission is to improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare in these regions through evidence-based decision-making and increased accessibility of qualified healthcare providers to vulnerable populations.
Our beneficiaries are all health system stakeholders:
- Patients access their health information hence better manage their health and share their medical history with healthcare providers; in longer-term access a better quality healthcare as result of the overall improvement of health systems.
- Physicians better organize their practice, offer better quality healthcare and reduce wasted time and ressources as result of access to patients medical history.
- Hospitals better manage their ressources, access funding for medical equipment and track outbreaks and reportable diseases
- Governments access in near real-time populations health information, being able to build stronger health systems, universal health coverage and track outbreaks.
- Manufacturers and distributers of medical products improve medical supply logistics.
We work closely with healthcare providers and governments to customize the platform in order to meet their needs.
Explain how the problem, your solution, and your solution’s target population relate to the Challenge.
Engaging all healthcare ecosystem stakeholders from doctors through governments to medical products manufacturers through an alternative business model, PocketPatientMD digital health platform is the solution to build stronger and affordable healthcare systems, enhance disease surveillance and improve healthcare supply chain world-wide.
Being integrable and interoperable, PPMD connects all nodes of healthcare ecosystem, improving its quality and efficiency and increasing the ability to prepare for, identify and react rapidly to public health emergencies.
Customizable, available in 6 languages offline and online, PPMD can be used across vaste and diverse regions. The more users, the more benefits PPMD produces at more levels.
What is your solution’s stage of development?
Scale: A sustainable enterprise working in several communities or countries that is looking to scale significantly, focusing on increased efficiencyWho is the primary delegate for your solution?
Mark Wien (CEO)
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
New York, NY, USAWhich of the following categories best describes your solution?
A new business model or processDescribe what makes your solution innovative.
PocketPatientMD differs itself from other digital health platform, such as OpenMRS, OpenClinic or DHIS2 mainly through the following three innovative approaches:
1. Doctor-led
The consistent use of the platform by doctors is key to generate benefits at a more macro level through crowdsourcing of populations accurate health information. We have closely researched our competitors products and doctors feedback was often not positive: the platforms are focused more on collecting data or managing hospital's administration rather than to make the doctors' work easier. Being aware that the health information is coming from doctors, who complete the patients health records, we placed physicians at the core of our platform. We conceived it in a close collaboration with doctors in several countries and we constantly improve it based on our users feedback. Customizations further allow to meet specific needs of a user.
2. Business model
We propose an alternative business model that guarantees access to affordable healthcare, contrary to our competitors who offer overly expensive products. Targeting resource-limited regions, we provide our platform to all healthcare providers and governments for free, while charging medical product manufacturers and distributors for aggregated reports in order to improve global medical supply chain.
3. Interoperability
Our platform can be connected or integrated to any other system, such as a pharmacy, lab, billing and other. Connecting to all nodes of healthcare ecosystem is key to ensure quality healthcare and build strong and resilient health systems able to respond in times of public health crisis.
Describe the core technology that powers your solution.
At core of PocketPatientMD digital health platform is an electronic medical record (EMR). It is an existing technology that aims to digitize each patient's medical record that can be easily accessed by other doctors treating the patient in order to view the patient's medical history and thus avoid unnecessary testing and avoid errors.
Unlike most of EMRs, we made ours customizable and easy-to-use in a doctors' office or hospital setting to help doctors save time and ensure they want to use the platform in their own interest.
In addition to different innovative features differentiating our EMR, such as interoperability, integrability or customization, the major difference lies in the business model. While other EMRs cost around US$167,000 per physician, ours is always free for healthcare providers. The income comes from aggregated reports for medical product manufacturers and distributers. Our aim was to develop a holistic model that ensures the sustainability of our product while generating benefits at multiple levels. Starting with one patient and a doctor at a time, our model can ultimately lead to improved global supply of medical resources and significant savings for governments, reducing the weight of health sector on GDP.
Provide evidence that this technology works.
Countries and health systems around the world have digitized patients medical records through different electronic medical record (EMR) platforms. Our platform PocketPatientMD is already being used by physicians in several countries. Currently, over 4,000+ patient records, with 400%+ growth since February 2020. New facilities and doctors in different countries continue to join each month.
Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:
What is your theory of change?
PocketPatientMD provides a new solution to a universal problem. By focusing on each stakeholder, beginning with the doctor, we create a platform that achieves the needs and objectives of each user, institution, or Ministry of Health, generating impact at multiple levels. The flexibility and ability to customize the platform allows the opportunity to expand in all global markets. The platform is currently in 6 languages, soon to be expanded to more, and is HIPPA and GDPR compliant, guaranteeing the highest security standards.
Our mission is to improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare systems in low- and middle-income countries. To achieve that, we provide a digital health platform for free to doctors who use it to better organize their practice and to eventually save time as result of being able to provide a more efficient, better quality health care due to an easy access to the patients medical history. To reach most of the public doctors, where most of people receive their care, we work closely with Ministries of Health (MoH). The first short-term outputs are thus creation of electronic medical records for patients, which patients can access and share it with a new doctor they see and who may not use the PPMD platform yet, and as result of which doctors can provide better and more efficient care.
The more doctors in a city/region/country adopt the platform, the more the MoH benefits in terms of health data of its population that it can use for a data-driven decision-making, disease tracking, sourcing of medical supplies. Furthermore, access to the health information leads to significant savings for doctors, hospitals and governments as result of better management of resources and avoidance of unnecessary tests. Last but not least, accessing accurate accountable reports and being able to justify their needs allow institutions to more easily seek funding for expensive medical equipment.
Eventually, working with manufacturers and distributers of medical products and equipment by sharing aggregated reports in terms of unmet needs, inventory levels and trends, improves logistics and global medical supply chain, avoiding wasted resources and increasing access to medical products and equipment.
Select the key characteristics of your target population.
Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your solution address?
In which countries do you currently operate?
In which countries will you be operating within the next year?
How many people does your solution currently serve? How many will it serve in one year? In five years?
The platform currently serves over 4,000 people across 4 countries and counting.
We are currently in discussions for pilots with over 35 Ministries of Health across Africa. We are in initial discussions with 4 Ministries of Health in Central and South America in addition to NGOs, and in talks with Ministries of Health in the Pacific Islands and SE Asia including the Philippines. A proposal was also sent to the DG of the MoH of Pakistan.
We expect to have over 25,000 users with current growth, and over 100,000 patients if one Ministry of Health signs on this year. These numbers relate only to pilot projects.
We expect expansions to regional and national levels in several countries in the coming years, hence an exponential growth with potential to serve millions of people across countries within next five years.
What are your goals within the next year and within the next five years?
Our main focus is expansion across Africa, SE Asia and South ad Central America. We have already established strong networks especially in Africa, where we have personally visited and engaged stakeholders in 35+ countries and joined the AfricaCDC task force on digital health, and starting to establish such connections in the two other regions. Having established these networks that we continue to strengthen and expand, we are currently at the point of scale and growth.
In the coming year, we are focused on scaling our platform among private physicians in multiple countries, implementing pilot projects with several Ministries of Health for public physicians, adding new languages including Portuguese, and expanding our platform into new markets.
Within the next five years, our goal is to scale to regional and national level within multiple countries in Africa, SE Asia and South and Central America. This expansion will start generating real benefits in terms of access to accurate and accountable health data for public health officials, strengthening their health systems and capacity to prepare for and respond to public health emergencies. This expansion will also allow for a more systematic collaboration with medical products manufacturers and distributers, improving medical supply chain while ensuring financial sustainability of our platform.
Additionally, we are always ready to quickly respond to any public health emergency that may appear, as we have done during the current COVID-19 crisis, quickly developing additional features to assist governments and doctors to identify hotspots and suspected cases and to monitor patients remotely.
What barriers currently exist for you to accomplish your goals in the next year and in the next five years?
While being a for-profit company backed-up by private investors, our business model generates income only once successfully scaled.
Our primary obstacles are thus financial. About $1million has been invested from founders and initial investors thus far and we seek to raise more funding to grow and scale up more quickly.
Another barrier for a quick adoption of our platform by physicians in the target regions is material. While we provide our platform to all doctors for free, we often encounter the lack of IT material in public hospitals, such as laptops and tablets. While doctors may have their personal laptop, they may be reluctant to use it at work or the hospital management may be reluctant to use such personal devices due to security risk. While the users facilities generally attempt to access such material support themselves, we try to explore material support partnerships that we can match our users with and thus acquire our physicians-users base faster.
How do you plan to overcome these barriers?
We are in talks with companies for bridge financing and pre-Series A. We are seeking funding to grow and scale the company and further prove concept.
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar modelsHow many people work on your solution team?
3 full time staff (CEO, CSO, CTO)
Contracted programming team (design, QA, programming support): 3-5 members
1 part-time (Francophone outreach)
Advisory team and board includes 12 professionals across a variety of industries including finance, AI, tech, and health.
How many years have you worked on your solution?
3 years
Why are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?
Our founders and team have direct experience in finance, healthcare, and technology, as well as firsthand experience working in these markets. Founders have spent years living abroad, including the CEO and CSO both with extensive experience living across Africa in Kenya, Malawi, and Nigeria. On the ground experiences, including meeting with doctors in over 45 countries on 3 continents, including 35+ African countries provides unique experiences and knowledge that give an advantage to succeed and grow in these normally difficult markets.
Furthermore, our advisory team and board is composed of a variety of senior, experienced and well-respected experts in a variety of sectors whose good knowledge is key for our solution to succeed, which includes healthcare, AI, tech, finance, public policy and international development across diverse geographic regions.
What organizations do you currently partner with, if any? How are you working with them?
PocketPatientMD works with all stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem including Ministries of Health, individual private and public doctors and private and public hospitals, pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, insurers, NGOs, and more. PocketPatientMD is a free platform and the core of the platform is dependent on working with physicians and acquiring a physician base. By providing a platform for partners to access and own their data provides further opportunities to collaborate and provide a free, cost saving infrastructure that can achieve multiple goals and objectives.
Furthermore, we have established strategic partnerships with Africa CDC, NigeriaCDC, Wellbeing Foundation Africa, and First Ladies Associations in the Republic of Congo, DRC and Chad. Additionally, we work closely with other strategic international development stakeholders to implement and scale our solution.
What is your business model?
PocketPatientMD is a for-profit, US based company (C-Corp). PocketPatientMD monetizes by focusing on improving logistics and the global supply chain of medical supplies and resources including reducing wasted resources and costs. PocketPatientMD provides profound savings to insurance providers by reducing unnecessary tests and improving access to accurate information to form the basis of improved actuarial tables and more.
Generating revenue from our work with medical products manufacturers and distributers and insurance providers allows us to provide the PPMD platform always for free, including unlimited storage, customizations and 24/7 technical support, to healthcare providers, from doctors to Ministries of Health, and thus increase access to affordable quality healthcare.
Storing all data on the highest-security servers in the world with the legal and regulatory protections enshrined in the US’ Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we always guarantee the highest data protection and security standards, with only the patient and his treating physician being able to access the identifiable information.
Do you primarily provide products or services directly to individuals, or to other organizations?
Individual consumers or stakeholders (B2C)What is your path to financial sustainability?
PocketPatientMD is already live and the concept has been proved - all funding originating from private investors and founders.
We are seeking to raise the additional funding primarily through private investors, however we are also exploring grant opportunities that would help us to scale.
The additional funding provides an opportunity to rapidly scale and expand the team for the stage of growth we are at, as well as to pursue new partnerships in new markets.
Once we successfully scale up and acquire a large physicians base, the PPMD becomes financially sustainable through the collaboration with insurance companies and medical products manufacturers and distributers, as detailed in our business model.
Why are you applying to Solve?
Being a pre-revenue company, our primary barrier is financial. Solve could help us to access additional funding, that would help us to scale faster and thus lift us to the stage where we can generate a real impact on several levels and reach our financial sustainability.
For us, scaling up means mainly acquiring a large physician base that use regularly our platform in their daily practice in multiple countries. Hence, Solve could also help us to scale up faster through facilitating the right strategic partnerships to acquire a such physician base in our target regions.
Last but not least, while our platform works offline and we provide it for free to Ministries of Health, hospitals and doctors, many of them face material barrier in terms of lack of simple IT equipment to use our platform. We are thus also seeking partnerships that would donate IT material (laptops or tablets) to hospitals in order to enable them to use our platform safely (doctors may have a personal laptop, however having a professional laptop that is used uniquely for purpose of the hospital/practice reduces significantly the security risk). Furthermore, while available offline, more features are available in the online mode and thus we are always keen to identify partnerships that help our users improve their internet connectivity.
While we have already established valuable partnerships in our target regions, we would benefit of connections to new partners in order to accelerate our growth, become financially sustainable and generate impact at all levels faster.
In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?
Please explain in more detail here.
As detailed above, we hope Solve can lift us to the stage of financial sustainability, at which we have potential to benefit millions of patients worldwide through improved access to quality healthcare and increase the capacity of governments to react quickly to public health emergencies, by helping us access additional funding and strategic partners that would help us quickly acquire the physician base and help our users/physicians overcome the material barrier in terms of access to the IT equipment.
What organizations would you like to partner with, and how would you like to partner with them?
1. Organizations working in healthcare in Africa, South East Asia and South and Central America and could connect us to physicians in these regions and/or that would be interested to use our platform during their health-related projects in the target regions.
2. Organizations donating IT equipment to low-income countries, to connect them with our users in need of a such equipment in order to use the platform regularly and safely in their daily practice
3. Telecommunication providers working in the target regions to help us acquire more physicians-users through improved internet connectivity and alternative solutions.
Solution Team
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Mark Wien Founder & CEO, PocketPatientMD
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Solution Name:
PocketPatientMD