The Healthcare and Medical supply chain in low and middle income countries remains fragmented and inadequate, with flaws that put patients at risk, cost billions in value, and lessen the health-care sector’s ability to take on the challenges it faces.
These challenges range from the extreme difficulty in finding, accessing and securing appointments with medical doctors and specialists to patient referral systems that are often one way and almost impossible to track due to uncoordinated/nonexistent information systems.
On the other hand, with or without a prescription, finding medical supplies can be a tedious task in these settings with high levels of uncertainty. Medical suppliers experience frequent stock outs, and patients with refills who make the journey to their last supplier with the assumption they still have the item in stock are often disappointed. Patients and their caregivers spend large amounts of time moving from place to place to find what they need. Thirdly, patients with any enquiry about a drug have to move back to the health provider/doctor who prescribed or the pharmacy where they got the medication or else spend a lot of money to call back if they have the telephone numbers.
The conundrum is that health providers face a significant problem of expiries due to poor inventory management and inability to predict stock movement. They also struggle to identify which distributors have stocks on hand, and general information and news of health and medical breakthroughs. Finally, private medical insurance is a fast-growing service across major cities in Africa. However, the service is fragmented as different insurers will work with select health providers, leaving patients unsure of which providers to go to that accept their insurance scheme. The sweet spot is an overlap between availability of product and insurance scheme – that is hard/impossible for patients and caregivers to determine today.
PillFinder addresses these five sets of related problems – at a click of a button. Patients can easily find the doctor, specialist they need and book appointments prior to going to the health facility or complete a consultation via a live chat. Pharmacists and front-line health workers can use the app to identify specialists for specific case referral or consult on how to handle a specific case.
Health workers, patients and caregivers can locate where to find pharmaceuticals and medical supplies of interest (including price), and whether these pharmacies accept their insurance scheme. Thirdly, patients can have a live chat with providers where they obtained/purchased medical suppliers to address questions or their concerns.
On the other hand, pharmacies/health facilities with excess inventory at risk of expiry can find another facility that will take their excess supplies at the PillFinder market place. Health facilities can quickly identify distributors with supplies they need to stock including prices. Health workers can access current medical related information including standards of care to aid their decision making.
Finally, patients under a specific insurance provider can find the health provider under that insurance scheme with the medical supplies they need.
