What is the name of your organization?
OneDay Health
What is the name of your solution?
Health AIM
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
Our AI powered heatmap identifies healthcare "blackholes", so no community is ignored and every community can be reached with quality healthcare
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Gulu, Uganda
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
UGA
What type of organization is your solution team?
Nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
5 million Ugandans and 100 million Sub-Saharan Africans live in healthcare "black holes", more than 5km from health facilities. When people in these communities fall sick, they only have bad options. They can travel long distances to government facilities, or wait at home hoping the condition will resolve. These healthcare access delays have been shown to increase mortality, especially for infectious diseases like malaria and pneumonia, and women in labour. Healthcare access inequality between remote and urban populations is stark. Remote Yumbe has a meagre 0.4 government facilities per 10,000 people, while Kampala has 20x more facilities with 8.4 per 10,000 people.
These remote communities are underserved because they are unseen - both government and NGO partners lack accessible, precise data which can demonstrate which communities are most neglected, with poor healthcare access. If providers cannot easily identify the most underserved communities, they fail to serve them.
To address inequalities and achieve Universal healthcare in Uganda and beyond, there is urgent need to accurately locate communities with poor healthcare access, to inform optimal healthcare resource allocation. New tools are needed to identify the most underserved communities, so we can provide the services they need.
What is your solution?
The Health Access Interactive Map (HAIM) tool addresses the critical challenge of healthcare access in remote areas. By providing a comprehensive visualization of Uganda’s healthcare network and “lighting up” remote areas with poor access. HAIM enables policy-makers and health providers to improve service delivery and resource allocation in remote healthcare black holes.
We built HAIM using a range of open-source datasets. First the open source “Worldpop” data uses AI to combines census data and satellite imagery to accurately estimate populations. Road networks are mapped and overlayed using the Global Roads Database, OpenStreetmap and Landsat data. Finally health facility GPS locations were provided by the Ugandan Ministry of health.
HAIM’s interface and features can be learned within 30 minutes.
1) HAIM’s Heatmap readily visualises communities with poor healthcare access
2) Users can click anywhere on the map to estimate the travel time to the nearest health facility using different transport modes of walking, biking and driving.
3) The polygon selection tool estimates the population of any user defined area.
4) The Demographic pyramid tool estimates the number of people in different age brackets.
5) Health AIM accurately estimates Health center catchment areas within user defined distances.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Health AIM serves the most neglected rural communities in Uganda — those living in healthcare “black holes” with no health facility within 5km. These communities are overwhelmingly poor, with our community survey showing that over 85 % of people rely on subsistence farming, 80% live in grass thatched houses and only 15% have a covered pit toilet facility. Health access in these areas can be so poor that lives are lost. In the words of one of our Nyakagoro OneDay Health Center clients "For a long time over a period of 10 years we suffered here because there was no health center, so people died on the way to other health centers. But now at least our lives have changed, because the hospital is near us”
Health AIM serves these communities through highlighting their specific healthcare needs such as long distance from primary healthcare facilities or distant delivery services. We at OneDay Health have used Health AIM for the last few years to accurately identify areas where our health centers can have the most impact. We are working towards a future where Health AIM is used not only by us, but empowers the Ugandan and other Governments to target health interventions where they’re needed most.
