Global AI-Powered Health Technologies (GAPhealth)

Non-communicable diseases(NCDs) make up 35% of deaths in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), as communicable diseases such as bacterial infections and HIV continue to decline, the percentage of NCDs will continue to grow drastically. 19 million people in SSA suffer from diabetes (our initial focus) with this number expected to grow to 47 million by 2045.

Two significant limitations in chronic disease management, are (1) The non-existent linkage in SSA between screening/prevention and specialist care that is typically seen in healthcare across the world. Limited specialists makes it difficult for patients to access treatment, consultations, prescriptions, etc . This has been further exacerbated by the lack of telehealth and the COVID pandemic, which disproportionately causes adverse outcomes in people with chronic diseases, creating challenges for in-person visits. (2) There is a lack of data to understand manifestations of diabetes and other chronic health conditions among people in SSA to predict trends and create contextualized management guidelines for the region. This lack of data is partially due to the lack of widespread electronic health records(EHRs). In this era of machine learning and big data, having a well-consolidated database can truly make a difference in understanding and predicting disease trends.

Our secure data storage system is mobile-based and less resource-intensive than traditional electronic health records systems and tailored towards the specific needs of low-and middle-income countries. Health providers (doctors, nurses and community health workers) can easily sign up and be verified to reach patients via telehealth. We will use de-identified data for machine learning to provide patient-specific health recommendations and data insights on chronic disease trends in the region. The app can integrate into hardware testing devices, starting with diabetes. 

For providers: There is a GAPhealth Provider and GAPhealth Patient Application. Health providers include and are not limited to doctors with varying specialities, nurses, community health workers, pharmacists, etc. As part of the signup process to be verified to use the GAPHealth providers' application, health practitioners must upload relevant information and documents used in their specific residential country. Providers can view upcoming/past patient appointments and view a calendar to set their availability for future patient appointments. The "Messages" function allows providers to communicate with patients and other health providers.The provider can communicate with the patient via SMS, phone, or video call during a telemedicine appointment. After the session ends, the provider can add clinic visit notes for the session, prescriptions, lab requests and any follow-up requests, which will be immediately sent to the patient once completed. 

For patients: Once the patients sign up to the GAPhealth Patient App, they will be prompted to complete their profile with specific clinically relevant information. The patient interface includes a "HealthProviders" tab that allows the patient to view verified health providers in the GAPhealth platform and filter by interest to a virtual or in-person appointment, language and speciality. The "Healthcare Visit Notes" tab allows patients to view their clinic visit notes sent by health providers after each clinical visit (virtual or in-person) session. Patients can add and view clinical appointments. The user can add and track medications and details such as the medication name, reason for medication, instructions, and reminders. Patients can add and track their immunizations and upload Lab Results. Patients can share any part of their data with providers during scheduled appointments.

We are focusing on patients with chronic health conditions in sub-Saharan Africa. The number of people living with diabetes who have mobile phones is ~14 million and is expected to grow to ~37 million people by 2045. We eventually want to expand to all non-communicable diseases. We estimate that our initial launch countries, The Gambia and Ghana have roughly 1.5 million people suffering from diabetes. There are 94,000 small and medium-sized clinics in SSA, Ghana and The Gambia combined have ~1800 small and medium-sized clinics and health centers. We target these two markets because the founders have grown up in these countries and have networks, access, cultural competence and a fundamental understanding of these environments.

Benefits

Society

Increasing opportunities for patients to access quality health providers and specialities

Provide a continuum of care with patient data available on their phones

Environment
No need for energy and capital to set up traditional EHR methods
Reduction in environmental pollution from travelling to distant hospitals

Local Economy
An additional source of income for providers and increased buying power
Healthy people who are not waiting in long lines can better contribute to the economy (one
person working has the potential to affect the lives of eight people in their community positively)
The home healthcare market in Africa is currently USD 4 billion and is expected to reach USD 5
billion by 2026. We believe we can capture 5-10% of this market share. Our initial launch will
target diabetic populations in Ghana and Gambia.
Hiring internal talent in the countries we operate in and paying them 70% higher than average

Firstly we are committed to improving healthcare in Africa using technology. Our co-founder and co-CEO, Bintou grew up in the Gambia, and watched her mother struggle with diabetes. Even though she used to help her mother manage her condition, there was less help when she and her siblings left Gambia to seek education abroad. Unfortunately, her mother passed away from complications related to unmanaged diabetes. Growing up in Ghana, Our co-founder and co-CEO, Mercy lost family members to preventable conditions due to lack of early diagnostics and access to care. She has watched her mother struggle with her managing her diabetes and lose track of her paper healthcare records. Our lead software developer and CTO, Harold, lives and works in Ghana and also has family members who suffer from chronic health conditions, including his mother who also has diabetes. 

There is a rise of unmanaged chronic health conditions, and struggle to access healthcare systems. Also, the data to understand trends of these conditions are pretty non-existent. Given the limited resources healthcare receives in Africa compared to the rest of the world, these issues don’t receive the health investment they deserve. This problem is very personal to us, and we are dedicated to solving it in a sustainable and profitable manner. At GAPhealth, we hope to close the health parity amongst Africans by extending the lives of people suffering from Diabetes, high blood pressure and other chronic conditions.

We are not just equipped with passion, we are also equipped with the skill sets to truly make a difference. Bintou is an MBA student at the University of Southern California. She is also a chemical engineer trained at Dalhousie University, Canada, with 6+ years of experience in process design and optimization, project management, and change management. She has worked in hospital system and software management in Halifax Canada and volunteers as a STEM leader to bridge gaps in learning to re-engage youth to improve academic outcomes.

Mercy is a biomedical engineer trained at the University of Rochester, Duke University (PhD) and currently working as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has 7+ years of medical development and implementation experience, global health, and artificial intelligence. She has developed a US-patented medical device for cervical cancer screening, and associated mobile software. She authored peer-reviewed manuscripts, grants, and clinical study protocols towards this device and conducted clinical studies in Durham, NC, USA; Lima, Peru, and Accra, Ghana, and has won several awards for her medical technology innovations including the Lemelson-MIT inventor award. She is currently working on using machine learning to improve low-cost ultrasound at MIT with the J-Clinic and thus is all too familiar with the need for representative datasets in building machine learning models. She is also working with a team as a consultant to commercialize the cervical cancer device.

Harold is a computer engineer with 7+ years experience architecting and building highly performant and visually appealing web and mobile applications. Before joining GAPHealth as a Full Stack Software Developer, he worked on high impact multi-million dollar software projects. Harold has been utilising his expertise to help African-owned startups to scale and compete globally. He is constantly improving himself and seeks to add extra to the ordinary wherever he goes.

We have barriers with raising funding and a marketing strategy to maintain and scale our work.

(1) We know that medical technology should be tailored to the specific needs of developing countries to facilitate scale-up and impact. Traditional electronic health records (EHRs) have high setup costs, need for technical resources, consistent electricity, training, and personnel. We are leapfrogging traditional EHRs and going towards an approach that will be more accessible and overcome the limitations mentioned. 

(2) Telemedicine penetration is low and existing systems do not integrate patient health records for continuous care. Currently, individuals who know providers contact them informally for consultation with no streamlined means for payment. Individuals who do not personally know health care providers are disadvantaged. We are making it easy for patients to contact providers via SMS, voice or video call, and utilize accessible payment methods on their smartphones. Patients are able to grant permission for healthcare providers to view any aspects of the health data.

(3) Chronic health data and management in Africa is minimal. Our software helps patients integrate with their chronic measurement devices, starting with diabetes monitors and our algorithms enable alerts and recommendations if measures exceed safe limits.  

We believe the market is extremely large, unsaturated, and we have enough differentiation to thrive in the space.

1 Year

• Onboard  5-10  network clinical customers in Ghana and the Gambia
• Optimize Market Strategy
• Machine learning incorporation
• Chronic health specific modules (diabetes glucose monitoring integration)

5 years

• Integrate with pharmacies and labs
• Expand to other chronic health conditions/non-communicable diseases to include maternal health, cardiovascular disease, cancer and sickle cell disease.
• Expand reach in Ghana and Gambia through marketing and outreach efforts. Commence groundwork research for expansion into Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and Senegal based on current partnerships.

• Increase access to health providers for people with chronic health conditions 
• Reduce the number of preventable deaths and hospitalizations for people with chronic health conditions
• Improve understanding of chronic health manifestation in areas of operation

Our core technology is our mobile and web-based software being developed by our lead software developer. 

For the integration of the diabetes monitoring, we will start with partnering either with a company like Dexcom or using white label monitors that we have spec’ed out. 

These monitors will connect to our app via bluetooth or manual patient entry. We will collect measures and show line trends to patients. 

If the measurement goes above medically known thresholds, the patient will be alerted. 

Over time we will use data generated by the patient to create personalized algorithms for predicting complications and recommending scheduling virtual or onsite clinical appointments.

Co-founders intro

Team intro

Having black, female, religiously diverse (Muslim and Christian) co-founders, as well as a majority female team we are very intentional about having every member of our team's voice heard and supported. 2 of our members are mothers and we accommodate their needs by being flexible on where to work, being open on having children as part of our virtual meetings :), and for our entire team making sure their family and well being is also a priority to us. 

Payment options

(a) Three-tier SAAS subscription for the base with additional charges for other features. Tiers include:

- For clinical institutions yearly subscription at $2000 annually for up to 5 providers, and an additional $250 per additional providers

-For  Health Providers:

- Subscription at $450 annually

- Pay as you go telehealth transaction fee at 25% charge per transaction

(b) Patients use the app for care management and receive insights at no fee by providing permission for de-identified data. Patients receive compensation when their data is used.

Marketing strategy

We will initially target B2B, health providers and health institutions. The software has low implementation costs. It provides the institutions with market differentiation to attract paying patients for virtual visits at their convenience. We have enlisted healthcare networks partnerships in Ghana and the Gambia and they are interested in adapting the app. The health institutions and their providers will enroll their patients to use the app (B2B2C).

Once we have a critical mass of clinical institutions and providers, we will include direct-to-consumer, targeting urban 20-65 aged patients directly through marketing. We will demonstrate the ease and convenience of reaching health providers, the value of the data storage and elucidate tailored data insights to improve their care outcomes.

Marketing for individual patients: in-person marketing campaigns in high density areas like markets, and universities. Social media (Whatsapp, Instagram, etc.), word of mouth, referral program from existing users, Traditional Advertising (radio, TV, signage in healthcare facilities, targeted mailings)

Marketing for healthcare facilities and individual health providers; Direct sale contacts, Word of Mouth, Medical Conference presentations (volunteer), Trade Show booths, Traditional Advertising (signage, targeted mailings)

We have conducted market surveys to determine the need and value of a patient-centred health data storage system in SSA. They indicate high interest in the data storage platform, with concerns centring around data security which we address with authentication measures. Even though this app feature is free, 72% of respondents were willing to pay, with greater than 50% willing to pay $3-$6 per month. We have also conducted surveys to determine interest in our mobile application as a whole by providers and patients in Ghana and Gambia. Of the 68 providers who signed up, greater than 50% did not currently have an electronic health record in their hospitals, and those that did found them cumbersome and inflexible. Roughly 90% of health providers indicated they are interested in conducting telehealth appointments at least two hours a  week, and the majority would charge $3-10 for a 15-minute session. Of the 72 patients who signed up, the majority indicated a willingness to pay $2-$10 for a 15-minute telehealth session and use the telehealth feature at least twice a month. The app is currently used by 70 patients and 23 providers with 100% retention. We also have LOIs from 3 hospitals in Ghana and from a network of clinics in the Gambia and Nigeria. Other clinics in Ghana and Gambia that we completed initial meetings with and are high potential clients include Nbita, Med Assured, and Westfield clinic. 

We are conducting a pilot launch at the Poku Transport Clinic in Ghana and  have letters of intent  for a subscription plan from 3 hospitals in Ghana and from a network of clinics in The Gambia and Nigeria. Other clinics in Ghana and Gambia that we completed initial meetings with and are high potential clients include Nbita, Med Assured, and Westfield clinic. We have a waitlist of 68 providers and 72 patients signed up to use our app, and we are turning them into clients.