YAKO DIRECT PRIMARY CARE MODEL - AFRICA.

Affordable access to quality healthcare for all people is the last frontier to poverty reduction and sustained economic prosperity in Africa.

Our Yako Direct Primary Care (Yako DPC) model for Africa is an enterprise-grade and provider-led digital subscription-based management system that delivers affordable and unlimited access to quality primary healthcare for all people. Our innovation leverages a proven digital platform transforming service delivery in the complex primary healthcare industry in the United States.

The innovation of the Yako DPC model for Africa model is that it builds on the growing infrastructure of mobile phones with 50% penetration across Africa, to drive customer adoption and engagement. IT targets the working class and informal sector which makes up over 80% of the African population. At scale, the Yako DPC model should democratize affordable access to quality healthcare, transform health systems and grow GDP by 10%+ annually for the next decade.

Affordable Access to quality healthcare is the problem we are solving across all of Africa, but our initial market focus is Nigeria and Cameroon.

The Yako DPC Model for Africa will provide affordable health coverage for the most vulnerable in society - working class.

<10% of all Africans have access to health insurance of any kind, private or government-sponsored.

NCD deaths likely to increase by 27% by 2030 (17% globally), ≥80% in Low to Middle Income Countries (LMIC) (WHO). (1,700 daily deaths in Nigeria).

Employee health benefits cost grow 20% Year on Year (Y-O-Y) yet Value On Investment (VOI) is minimal. Workforce of 60M in countries like Nigeria, is most at risk.

<0.2% of patients screened at community and primary health centers can afford or get referred to specialty hospitals. (PwC Nigeria 2016). 

Most recently the expected damage from the COVID19 pandemic may lead to 9million to 18 million jobs in the formal sector being lost or made redundant across Africa. Also, African Finance Ministers need >US$100 Billion in funding to transform health systems and keep their economies afloat following the impact of COVID19. (McKinsey & Co.)

The Yako DPC Model for Africa is direct & personalized care we can all afford.

It is an enterprise-grade and provider-led management platform that powers an integrated ecosystem of virtual clinics, standardized primary care clinics and specialty care hospitals to dramatically improve patient access and clinical outcomes while lowering overall costs of care.

We charge a monthly subscription fee to members in return for unlimited access to qualified primary care physicians and discounted medical diagnostic, pharmacy and specialist referral services.

Yako is collaborating with the US market leaders in DPC - a software technology company and a physician-owned provider network, to license their intellectual property and growth playbook, integrated with our current YakoCares digital platform to develop a customized DPC solution, appropriate for the majority of people in the Africa market.  

Benefits include:

• CONVENIENCE - Unlimited access through 24-hour virtual & in-person connectivity to healthcare providers.
• AFFORDABILITY - A subscription-based pricing model offers cost savings for government, corporate clients, employees and all others who work in the informal sector.
• RELIABILITY - Proven delivery model, world-class clinical protocols, standardized and well-equipped clinics.

Development Challenges and Impact Statement

The Yako DPC Model for Africa targets the working class. Corporations, the public sector and the informal sector. The goal is to improve the ability of the community to meet SDG-17 goals:  

1. Impact KPIs – SDG3 Good Health & Wellbeing
   1. Access – 40% increase from baseline for primary care
   2. Affordability – 60% reduction in Total Cost of Care (TCC)
   3. Quality Outcomes – 95% compliance with international clinical protocols to achieve superior clinical outcomes.
2. Impact KPIs – SDG9 (Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure)
   1. Industry – Transform digitization of healthcare sector in Africa through the YakoCares operating system supported by digital technology licensed from Yako's US partner.
   2. Jobs – Increase number of high skilled jobs in digital health and healthcare services
   3. Innovation – Introduce innovative DPC model, as first of its kind in Africa
   4. Infrastructure – Upgrade and standardize designs of Primary Healthcare Centers (PHCs) as part of a health infrastructure transformation.
3. Partnerships for the Goals (SDG 17) - Engage in technology and skills transfer with US-based partners to drive health system transformation across African countries, most at risk of losing basic livelihood and economic sustenance due damage from COVID19 and NCDs and COVID19.. 

2018-2019 results:

We screened 5,000+ patients using instant ECG scans and point of care blood tests for cardiometabolic diseases. We also leased medical equipment to private clinics and government hospitals in Nigeria and Cameroon:

• ~60% of working population was abnormal for diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke and needed maintenance care.
• ~5% was critical, needed access to immediate care, could not afford it.
• <15% of total healthcare budget in both countries spent on health infrastructure upgrades.
• Nigerians spend US$2Bn+ on Medical Tourism annually.

Our results inform us customers/patients prefer a subscription-based model like Yako DPC, matching how they consume other necessities.

Direct Primary Care (DPC) is the center of a rapidly growing price transparent healthcare ecosystem that better aligns incentives and eliminates unnecessary middlemen

The Yako DPC Model is ideal for the African healthcare market which is still in its infancy and has yet to be corrupted by adminstrators, insurance middle men and lobbyists who will never place the interest of the patient at the center of all activities.

Yako's US partner is the Direct Primary Care (“DPC”) solutions company that partners with visionary provider organizations to build successful DPC programs. They offer deep expertise, comprehensive services, and their digital platform is the enterprise-grade DPC management platform that powers the largest and fastest-growing DPC organizations in the country.

their technology powers Direct Care, the provider-led movement that dramatically improves patient access and outcomes while lowering costs. Their Direct Care Administration Platform is the first solution that gives providers the tools they need to scale this model with consumers and employers, enabling a better healthcare experience for everyone.

the core technoplogy is the HIPAA-compliant platform trusted by the largest and fastest-growing DPCs in the country because it is the only Direct Primary Care software solution that provides end-to-end automation of the million little things it takes to do DPC right.

Today across the United States, their DPC network includes over 1000 clinics running on their technology, over 1800 employers offering DPC and 5 DPC affiliates and growing. 

Once the core technology is licensed from our US partners, it will be customized and run on our proprietary YakoCares platform for the Africa market.

The core technology is a comprehensive software solution called HintOS, that includes the following services:

Administration

• Enrollment
• Eligibility
• Billing
• Payment
• Network Management
• Commission Tracking and 
• Reporting.

The technology stack includes solutions from API integration partners to deliver a comprehensive DPC experience. These include but are not limited to:

Clinical

• Electronic Medical Records
  • Charts
  • Schedule
  • Orders
  • Prescriptions
• In-Office Dispense
• Visual Care Teams
• Analytics

Patient Communications

• Secure Video
• Secure Messaging
• Secure VM.

In addition, for the Africa market we will include a Managed Equipment Services (MES) offering for medical equipment leasing services to provide in-house diagnostic imaging and pathology capabilities for the Primary Healthcare Centers (PHCs) to increase affordability. 

The Yako MES offering is:

A long-term, multi-vendor medical technology management solution designed to provide clinics and hospitals with sustainable access to a bundled set of medical technology services for a predictable fee.

Benefits of the MES program include, affordable local financing, accountability and predictability through a well-defined and transparent operational process, regular performance reviews and project management.

How Nextera Health uses DPC to create value for employers.

hint Health Summit Video Libraries.

About DPC by Hint Health.

Direct Primary Care has grown 12.6X across the US since 2015. There are DPC providers in all 50 states in the US today and more than 50% of them are powered by the HintOS digital platform. 

DPC is amongst the fastest growing models for the provision of primary care in the US, targeting the working class. 

• Activities - Service Delivery. Enroll patients in Yako DPC Model, perform annual medical examination and basic diagnostic imaging and blood tests to screen for infectious diseases like malaria and Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) such as Cardiovascular Disease, Diabetes, Cancer and Chronic Respiratory Diseases. 
• Outputs -  Data. Abnormal patients referred to specialists for maintenance and critical patients immediately provided interventional care.
• Short-term Outcomes - Increased patient flow at primary care centers, increased trust in the local healthcare system by the population, increased access to care for employers and self-employed entrepreneurs in the informal sector, greater affordability of care through the subscription pricing model, 
• Medium-term Outcomes - Increased capacity building for local primary care doctors and other healthcare workers, stronger supply chain network for primary healthcare, better profitability for the Yako DPC Model.
• Long-term Outcomes - Improved overall health outcomes for the population, deaths from NCDs avoided, better productivity of healthcare providers in DPC Model, better profitability for companies with employees enrolled in Yako DPC Model, transformation of the health systems in the local country where Yako DPC is implemented.

Currently - 5,000 - 10,000 patients annually

In 1 year - 50,000 patients annually

In 3 years - 250,000 patients annually

In 5 Years - 2 million patients annually.

Our goal is to simply build capacity to be able to manage up to 100 million patients per year by 2024 or in 5 years. 

To achieve this goal the following steps have to be accomplished:

1. Access - Enroll up to 2,060,000 total patients
2. Affordability - Provide tiered pricing model to attract and retain up to 30% of the target population of people working in the informal sector in markets where we operate
3. Platform - over 412 Primary Healthcare Centers (PHCs) serving at least 5,000 members per center
4. Geography - Present in at least 5 countries, ideally 10.
5. Human Capital - Develop a community of trained and certified doctors, nurses, technicians and specialists who will act as Trainers for future leaders across the Yako DPC organization
6. Operating Systems - Customize the Yako DPC operating system on YakoCares, deploy it in multiple languages, English, French and possibly Swahili.
7. Standardization - Develop a Yako DPC Growth Playbook to accelerate growth across clusters of countries in Sub-Sahara Africa with similar languages and Regional Economic Community (REC) affiliation.

The healthcare market across Africa is still in infancy, so the ability to recruit and retain top talent is by far the greatest challenge. 

Year 1 - Validating the Yako DPC Model Prototype. 

Challenges:

• Talent - We need to find strong leaders within our team and externally to develop and execute the prototype to enroll and manage up to 50,000 members within the first 12 months
• Technical Assistance/Grants - Though the DPC model is proven in the Us, it is new to Africa, so we will need to raise grants/technical assistance to de-risk the market creation aspect of the prototype phase
• Blended Finance (Debt/Equity) - In addition to the TA/Grants, we will need to secure commitment for convertible debt of at least US$2m to standardize the model beyond the prototype phase and prepare to scale.

Year 3-5 - Standardize and Scaling the Yako DPC Model

Challenges:

• Supply Side (Providers) - Identify enough primary care doctors who own their own practice and qualify to enroll in the Yako DPC Model
• Demand Generation - Educate the local population on the virtues of the DPC model over conventional health insurance
• Operating Systems - Make sure YakoCares DPC is customized for the different geographies across Africa
• Governance - Corporate governance will be a constant challenge in any environment or market
• Regulatory - Educating the local regulators across countries to implement policy that allows the Yako DPC model to grow at projected rates.

Year 1 - Validating the Yako DPC Model Prototype. 

• Talent - Collaboration with Ashoka and other network groups to identify young talents willing to grow in leadership roles
• TA/Grants - Advanced discussions with international Development Finance Institutions (DFI), impact investors and foundations to raise TA/grants for the Yako DPC model
• Blended Finance (Debt & Equity) - Same as above.

Year 3-5 - Standardize and Scaling the Yako DPC Model.

• Supply Side (Providers) - engage a smaller group of private operators, but first build the Yako DPC platform by hiring doctors to work in PHCs owned and operated by Yako
• Demand Generation - Sustained market activation programs suing digital and other media to drive customer engagement and education about the virtues of the Yako DPC model
• Operating Systems - Strategic partnership with Hint Health as technical partners to accelerate technology transfer and success of our proprietary YakoCares model for DPC.
• Governance - Continue to engage with the current Yako Board of Directors and advisors, provide 3rd party training and support as needed to maintain governance best practice
• Regulatory - Early and consistent engagement of local policy-makers. Provide recent examples of best practice and success stories on DPC policy change in the USA.

12 people.

Team - As the Founder, I have over 24 years experience in healthcare across the US and Africa from sales to General Management. Our team consists of young and talented professionals, PhDs, Medical doctors, technicians and project managers who all grew up the markets we serve and committed to our mission objective.

Board of Directors - Our Board of Directors includes a cross-section of experiences from experienced senior executives in financial services with GE Asset Management, senior finance executives in the Oil & Gas industry, senior account managers in the pharmaceutical industry. 

Investors - Our investors are a group of over 25 "Friends & Family" who come from and work in the US, Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa all with critical relationships across the local market to help us drive sales.

Strategic Partners & Collaborations - See list of partners below. We have signed distributor agreements with some of the leading medical equipment and diagnostics companies in the world.

Co-creating Culture - We are building a corporate culture based on co-creation because we understand there are no experts in the future and most of what Africa will need to deliver quality healthcare has yet to be discovered, so we remain open as a platform to co-create new solutions to deliver affordable access to quality healthcare to all people in Africa.

Boehringer Ingelheim - We are one of the companies that was selected in the Makaing More Health Accelerator (MMHA) in 2019.

Philips Foundation - We were also selected to participate in the Accelerating Healthcare Access (AHA) co-creation accelerator.

Hint Health - We recently signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) to customize the HintOS platform for DPC and deploy it in Africa

Nextera Healthcare - We recently signed a Letter of Intent (LOI), with Nextera, HintOS' leading provider group, to serve as our capacity building partner to train and certify primary care doctors in Africa under our DPC platform.

Tricog Healthcare - Tricog is an Indian healthcare technology leader in early screening for cardiovascular disease using instant ECG services. We are Tricog's channel partner for our markets in Africa.

Philips Healthcare - We are a reseller and distributor for Philips Healthcare's portfolio of products for diagnostic imaging, cardiology and 

Abbott Diagnostics - We are a channel partner for the Afinion2 Point of Care blood test system for cardiometabolic diseases by Abbott Diagnostics.

GE Healthcare - We are also an approved reseller of diagnostic imaging medical equipment provided by GE Healthcare in our operating markets.

Janesis Biosciences - We are a distributor for the ProtectTM COVID19 RT-qPCR Kits and the Fortitude 2.0 Kit, a COVID19 Real Time RT-PCR tests.

Subscription Model with a B2B and B2C offering. We charge a monthly subscription fee to members in return for unlimited access to qualified primary care physicians and discounted medical diagnostic, pharmacy and specialist referral services. Primary targets are corporate and working class to enroll employees. We also offer a retail package for self-employed and individuals who work in the informal sector. 

Our suppliers include medical equipment companies like GE Healthcare, Philips Healthcare, Abbott Diagnostics for point of care blood tests, partnerships with retail pharmacies. We are approved distributors of over 80% of the medical equipment, blood tests and telemedicine systems we will need to equip all the primary care clinics that will be operating on the Yako DPC model digital platform.

Yako is a for-profit company with a social mission. We make money by charging a fee for our service.

Given the social nature of our business - healthcare, we will initially rely on grants and technical assistance to fund our early operations.

We will then raise impact investments, in the form of equity and debt, to grow sales.

Long-term, or by year 3-4, we expect to be generating sufficient revenues to cover our expenses and start paying back some of our debt or providing dividend guidelines to our investors.

Year 1 focus - Validating the Yako DPC Model Prototype. 

Support Needed:

• Talent - Identify 1-2 strong candidates from MIT or the Solve network, willing to spend at least 3-6 months working in Africa on cool projects like the Yako DPC Model
• Technical Assistance/Grants - To customize the DPC platform for deployment as YakoCares DPC model
• Blended Finance (Debt/Equity) - Access to potential impact investors.

Year 3-5 Focus - Standardize and Scaling the Yako DPC Model

Support Needed:

Operating Systems

• Provide technical support in the form of access to one or more skilled digital health experts, software engineer or data architects at MIT or through your network who would be willing to volunteer and work with us to develop our YakoCares digital integrated care ecosystem to manage our DPC model as well as other aspects of our business to serve the Africa market.

Partnership Goal is Co-creation.

Financing for Prototype - Seeking support in the form of Technical Assistance/Grants and Talent to help us execute a successful prototype to enroll up to 50,000 members in the Yako DPC Model for Africa in Nigeria and Cameroon and increase our chances of closing on impact financing of up to $5m in convertible debt/equity. 

Technical Development for YakoCares - Support in the form of a collaboration with a digital health company or to provide resources to facilitate our current partnership with our US partners to license their IP platform and customize it to operate under our YakoCares platform as the Yako DPC Model for Africa.

Ideal partner for us has already been identified to help us develop our DPC model. What we would appreciate most is an opportunity to secure the resources and know-how to create a "technology development lab" to continue to test and validate the various technology solutions we are licensing and customizing for the Africa market.

For our Yako DPC Model solution to work and scale beyond major cities, we will need to develop a core capability in Population Health Screening for Non-Communicable Diseases and build preparedness for pandemics in rural communities.

We would need to hire an "army of community health workers" who would be recent university graduates and top-performing high school studuents from the local villages and communities. They would be provided with portable Kits that contain early screening and diagnostic tests to go into the hard to reach rural areas in Nigeria, Cameroon and other countries, to provide community health awareness programs. They would also conduct health fairs to teach local citizens about the power and value of early and frequent screening for chronic diseases as part of preventive health management.

This Population Health Screening Program will help us reduce the spread of future pandemics and outbreaks which constitute a critical part of the security of most emerging countries that are already fragile.

Nigeria and Cameroon are two anchor countries in the ECOWAS and ECCAS regional economic community of nations in Africa and critical to the short and long-term security of the sub-region. 

Our Yako business model is already based on screening large segments of the population, so this would simply be an extension of our core acitivity.

The core of our Intellectual Property is YakoCares.

1.  YakoCares v1.0
   1. Preventive - Early screening for NCDs (Current business)
2. YakoCares v2.0
   1. National/Regional Command Center and screening for COVID19 
   2. Database, Digital Track & Monitor of Population
   3. Proactive Communication & patient management and support isolation services for pandemic response.
3. YakoCares v3.0
   1. Yako Direct Primary Care (DPC) Model v1.0 -  focused on basic Primary Care – Consult, Diagnostics (blood and scans) & Pharmacy
   2. Yako DPC Model v2.0 - Enhanced to include referral to integrated group of specialists like cardiology, nephrology (diabetes), oncologists for cancer and Pulmonologists (COPD)

1. YakoCares v4.0
   1. Affordability & Subscription-based Model - Managed Equipment Services (Leasing) and other services
   2. Sustainability – Certificate programs for Capacity Building and
   3. YakoCares Franchise Growth Playbook.

Yako DPC Model

An enterprise-grade management platform that powers the Yako Integrated Care Ecosystem (Yako ICE) model. Yako ICE Model, a network of virtual clinics, health screening kiosks, standardized primary care clinics and specialty treatment centers or hospitals arranged and managed in a “Hub & Spoke” model to optimize patient/member experience.

YakoCares will power Yako Direct Primary Care (Yako DPC), a provider-led movement that seeks to dramatically improve patient access and outcomes while lowering costs.

YakoCares Direct Care Administration Platform is the first solution in Africa that will give healthcare providers the tools they need to scale the Yako DPC model with consumers and employers, enabling a better healthcare experience for everyone.

YakoCares is the only Direct Primary Care software solution that provides end-to-end automation of the million little things it takes to do DPC right.

The mission of Yako and YakoCares is to make Direct Primary Care the new standard in healthcare in Africa. 

Yako MES

The Yako Managed Equipment Services (MES) offering is a long-term, multi-vendor medical technology management solution designed to provide clinics and hospitals with sustainable access to a bundled set of medical technology services for a predictable fee.

Benefits of the Yako MES program include, affordable local financing, accountability and predictability through a well-defined and transparent operational process, regular performance reviews and project management.

We charge a fixed unitary fee for the financing, rental, service, operations, education & telemedicine services to help providers deliver affordable access to quality healthcare to all people.

Cameroon Ambazonia Crisis displaces over 1M people since 2016.

The English speaking people who make up over 20% and come from the NW and SW region of Cameroon, the country of birth of Ngu H. Morcho, Yako Founder, have been under a civil war since early 2016. 

To date, over 1 million people have been displaced including mothers and babies. Basic elementary, secondary and higher education has been severely interrupted. Supplies to the region  have been disrupted and as such basic health services are non-existent. The local hospitals have no supplies and the citizenry is displaced from their villages and forms of basic income.

The region is at risk of exploding into a full civil war, without comprehensive intervention from the international community.

As children from the region and as a company with operations in Cameroon, we are ideally positioned to engage the local community leaders to begin to develop solutions to address this human crisis before it descends into a global crisis.

At Yako, our business solutions are designed to be closely aligned with the SDG goals, specifically 

1. SDG3 - Good Health & Wellbeing
2. SDG9 - Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure and 
3. SDG17 - Partnerships.

We will track progress along SDG goals using the SDG Action Manager

https://bcorporation.net/welcome-sdg-action-manager

We will register the Yako DPC Model on the SDG Action Manager program to help us track adherence and progress against SDG goals.

Developed in cooperation with B Lab, the SDG Action Manager is a web-based impact management solution to enable businesses to take action on the Sustainable Development Goals through 2030.

The SDG Action Manager brings together B Lab’s B Impact Assessment, the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact, and the Sustainable Development Goals, to enable meaningful business action through dynamic self-assessment, benchmarking, and improvement. It is informed by the work and feedback of a range of stakeholders, including experts in corporate sustainability, civil society, UN, and academia; and it is inspired by the Certified B Corp community and participating companies of the UN Global Compact.

The Yako DPC Model will seek to achieve the following outcomes under the 3 groups of SDGs as follows:

Impact KPIs – SDG3 Good Health & Wellbeing

• Access – 40% increase from baseline for primary care
• Affordability – 60% reduction in Total Cost of Care (TCC)
• Quality Outcomes – 95% compliance with international clinical protocols to achieve superior clinical outcomes and reduce deaths from NCDs.

Impact KPIs – SDG9 (Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure)

• Industry/Supply Chain – Transform digitization of healthcare sector in Africa through the YakoCares operating system supported by HintOS from the US and strengthen the supply chain for primary care in Africa.
• Jobs – Increase number of high skilled jobs in primary care, digital health and healthcare services
• Innovation – Introduce innovative DPC model, as first of its kind in Africa
• Infrastructure – Upgrade and standardize designs of Primary Healthcare Centers (PHCs) and specialty hospitals as part of a health infrastructure transformation.
• Capacity Building – Provide Continuing Medical Education (CME) credit programs for medical doctors for primary and specialty care. Develop and provide certificate programs for biomedical technicians and nurses. Develop a leadership program for healthcare management fellows to develop better healthcare business managers.

Impact KPIs - SDG 17 – (Partnerships.) 

Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development. Co-create and develop “first-in-market” solutions as follows:

• Blended Finance – A partnership with international Development Partners and local banks to unlock blended financing to scale the Yako DPC Model beyond the prototype phase.
• Operations Excellence – Enable opportunity for Yako and US-based partners to launch innovative Yako DPC Model, which uses a digital enterprise management platform to deliver access to comprehensive primary care based on a subscription business model.
• Light Manufacturing - Engage industrial partners to localize assembly and light manufacturing capability for high volume medical equipment and consumables in Nigeria and Cameroon to drive affordability and reduce cost of care to end consumer.