AfyaChapChap

Kenya faces a significant shortage of physicians with only 4500 in the entire country. Often it becomes a challenge to know where to find certain doctors and at what time. Many low and middle income people are suffering from poor health services at exorbitant prices. Most have no health insurance and are denied medical attention in cases of emergency. Poor regulation has also led to unregistered and quack health care providers which causes deaths in some instances.

AfyaChapChap is a mobile and web platform that provides a listing of approved health specialists/consultants, chemists, laboratories, health facilities, blood banks, ambulance services, and their charges for each available service. Users/patients can locate the health service providers by distance, services offered, pricing, user ratings and availability; book an appointment and even access emergency medical loans. Users earn redeemable points that can be redeemed when purchasing prescribed medicines or accessing other health services.

Many countries in Africa and Asia share the same problems in healthcare services for the low income populations. Kenya faces a significant shortage of physicians with only 4500 in the entire country according to the World Health Organization with only just one doctor per 10,000 citizens. Often it becomes a challenge to know where to find certain specialists and at what time. Many low and middle income people are suffering from poor health services at exorbitant prices. Most have no health insurance and are denied medical attention in cases of emergency. Poor regulation has also led to unregistered and quack health care providers which causes deaths in some instances.

Our solution is to provide actionable healthcare information for low to middle income people to enable them access good quality healthcare and in a more convenient way. Our solution enables people to compare services for both public and private sector health providers without bias. We shall help service providers easily manage their health records through online booking. We shall help users to track their health care spending, and access emergency loans, which they can repay in small installments over time after accessing the medical service which will help prevent deaths and more suffering.

Our solution contributes to healthy cities by enabling urban populations avoid low quality health services and know the costs. This will also improve efficiency and create competition for high quality services among medical service providers. People living in cities will not be denied access to basic medical services due to lack of funds since they can access loans and repay slowly. Digitizing access to health services will enable stakeholders in urban areas including governments in cities to monitor and have concrete data that can inform policy.

AfyaChapChap is a mobile and web platform that provides a listing of approved health specialists/consultants, chemists, laboratories, health facilities, blood banks, ambulance services, and their charges for each available service. We use mobile application, website and USSD to enable users/patients can be able to search and locate the health service providers by distance, services offered, pricing, user ratings and availability; book an appointment and even access emergency medical loans. All these are paperless hence reducing the time spent trying to get a doctor and process an emergency medical loan. Users earn redeemable points for any bookings made or service/product ordered through our platform. These points can be redeemed when purchasing prescribed medicines or accessing other health services.

We shall sign up health service providers onto our platform by collecting information about their practice, their licensing information and certificate, their location,, and business registration information. We shall verify their licenses with regulatory bodies. Approved service providers will then have an admin panel where they can upload their products and services and the pricing. Users visiting the web and mobile platform will be able to search for service and product and book and pay. Medical loans requested will be assessed and processed by third party lenders who will be linked to our platform, and the results of the loan application will be revealed to the user within minutes.The amount of loan will be paid directly to the health service provider. We shall market the solution through medical associations, social media and traditional advertising. 

Our solution is innovative in that we are the only ones to offer emergency health loans on request, which are paid to the service provider and the patient can repay over a period of time. The patient requests for the loan after choosing  a health service they want, and the mobile based loan is processed within less than 10 minutes. 

Also, we are the only health service listing platform that allows users to compare prices, user ratings, location and even availability before booking a health service provider. We are also pioneering a loyalty program- ChapChap points that allow users to redeem and use them for purchase of drugs from pharmacies or get discounts at service providers.

We are using a web and mobile platform that has a database of licensed health service providers. 

AI and machine learning will be used in automating the search process on our platform. AI will also be used to predict outcomes – health tips to users, and suggest services and products to users. 

Our solution will solve the problems for people and result in the following outcomes: 

• Reduced deaths that were caused by lack of information on location and pricing of health service providers.
• Improved preventive health care as a result of health care tips to our users.
• Reduced health complications as a result of elimination of unregistered and quack health service providers.
• We will bring value to service providers and governments by sharing the feedback from healthcare consumers on the type of services they like and what needs to be changed.
• We shall help users to track their health care spending, and access emergency loans, which they can repay in small installments over time after accessing the medical service which will help prevent deaths and more suffering. 

We are currently conducting beta testing targeting 100 health service providers and 500 users.  We target to reach 100,000 users and 2000 service providers in 1 year. In 5 years, we target 10 million users. 

In 1 year, we target to have 100,000 people using our platform to search, locate and book appointments for healthcare services. We target to have 2000 licensed and vetted health service providers on our platform.  We shall have at least 10 team members. We hope to generate at least $500,000 in revenue. 

In 5 years, we are aiming to be operating in at least 5 countries in Africa serving 10 million people. 

Competitive risk- we anticipate that other players who may have significant resources may want to deploy same project. We therefore require significant funds to ensure we are first to market in many countries. 

We are working towards acquiring some intellectual property rights.  We will also seek to be the early in the market and grow our brand. We will also constantly look to innovate our model and solution. 

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Mercyline Masanya– Co-founder & CEO- Bsc. Public Health. Has worked previously in advancing public health in rural communities as well as economic empowerment programs for youths and women.

Kelvin Nyeli- Co-founder & COO- Registered Pharmacy Technologist and currently pursuing a degree in Public Health. He has over 3 years experience working in private medical facilities in Kenya.

Griffin Kisia- Software Engineer- He has over 8 years of software development for consumer facing solutions across various platforms.

Evans Wadongo– Adviser - Has over 10 years experience as an entrepreneur, mentor. He has vast knowledge in product development, business modeling and branding.

Our platform enables users to search, locate, book and pay for health services and we get a commission for each booking. The users are also able to request emergency medical loans and we get a percentage of the interest. We will partner with mobile based lending companies and banks who will process the  loan requests at the backend and approve or disapprove the loan.  Users will also rate the service and accumulate loyalty points which they can redeem when purchasing health services or products. 

Healthcare service providers who list on our platform are vetted and pay an annual subscription fee. 

We aim to monetize our solution by:

• Charging annual Subscription fee from health service providers of $30/year. 

• Commission on bookings/orders of services made via our platform from service providers- 15% of the cost of each service. 

• Advertisements/featured listing on our platform.

• Commission on interest charged on emergency medical loans from credit providers.- 1% on top of interest charged by the lending provider. 

Solve will enable us get funds needed to reach our target customers and increase our team. Solve will also enable us accelerate our product development by partnering with experts. Solve can enable us create a board that can help move the strategic direction of the company forward. Mentorship from Solve would help us learn how to navigate through startup challenges we may encounter as we scale. 

Mobile based loan providers and banks. Example is Tala, Branch and ABSA bank, Equity Bank and Kenya Commercial Bank.

Telecommunication service providers such as Airtel

We will use the prize to develop and integrate AI into our solution. 

AI and machine learning will be used in automating the search process on our platform. AI will also be used to predict outcomes – health tips to users, and suggest services and products to users. 

We will use the prize to develop and integrate AI into our solution. 

AI and machine learning will be used in automating the search process on our platform. AI will also be used to predict outcomes – health tips to users, and suggest services and products to users. 

We will use the prize to ensure we enroll at least 20,000 women from underprivileged backgrounds to use our platform. 

We will utilize the prize to advance our product to ensure more safety for the data we collect and purchase better cloud storage with backup. 

We will collect basic biodata from users and the health condition which will only be shared with a health service provider that the user chooses.