M-SCAN

So many risk factors of maternal mortality go undetected. These stretch from the simple complications to rare complications to include rare congenital anomalies. To date, we lose at-least 16 mothers to such complications.

Globally, we lose over 830 pregnant mothers to such complications of maternal mortality. Anomalies such as holoprosencephaly, anencephaly, anhdraencephaly are costing mothers and their babies lives, and with early detection, proper management can be made.

Our solution is the M-SCAN devices that we have developed. These are portable, low cost and power efficient ultrasound devices that work on laptops, tablets and mobile phones. We've leveraged a human centered design approach in developing our device and this makes it very simple and user friendly for fit in Sub-Saharan Market.

Through use of over 128 elements of piezoelectric crystals, our devices have a very high resolution and quality for detailed scans and diagnosis. 

Our developed software facilitates teleradiology if need be, we're also incorporating artificial intelligence to aid in predictability of pathologies that would other wise be missed. 

Our solution serves a wide range of market to include patients with general abdominal problems, pelvic, gynaecological and obstetrics problems.

Through maternal advocacy, we have tailored the product with key features to detect a wide range of complications especially in pregnant women and as such we have a vision to reduce maternal mortality in Sub-Saharan. We are already contributing to lowering the cases in Uganda where we have detected over 600 complications among 2,000 pregnant women scanned with right interventions done and their lives saved. 

Our solution follows very personal attachment/s to the problem we solve. Myself as a radiographer, during my medical training, I was posted in Gulu, Northern Uganda, famous for the 2000 Kony killings. In this place, I could hardly get an ultrasound machine to scan the many lines of mothers coming in for antenatal. And as such I saw the plight of mothers die due to risk factors that could especially be detected using ultrasound and their lives saved. 

The only available ultrasound machine had broken down, regardless, it was heavy on power consumption, bulky, expensive and sophisticated to use. This spurred the desire for me to develop M-SCAN,

The same applied to my colleague Phyllis Kyomuhendo a medical radiographer posted in Amach district for her training where they had no single ultrasound device. 

Only 3 years back during development of our device, my cousin lost her baby in-utero over a bad retro-placental bleed that wasn't detected because she couldn't get the much needed ultrasound scan, this further accelerated me and my team to develop M-SCAN with the urgency possible,

Through development, we work with Dr. Prosper Ahimbisibwe who hails from rural Uganda in Kanungu, he is in charge of clinical protocols and organizing medical camps for user testing. To date we have carried out 10 medical camps where we scanned over 2,000 pregnant women and detected over 600 complications with rightful interventions done. 

My team is blessed with Ivan and Joel both Software developers with expertise in embedded systems. They have worked immensely on the software and been involved in user testing, feedback and iterations.

We work with Gloria Tuhaise, a mother and expert in business strategy. She has worked with the Central bank of Uganda for the last 20 years as an auditor and advisor on business strategy.

Currently, we want to deploy more M-SCAN devices on subsidy model to sustainably increase detection of risk factors in pregnancy. After our machines detecting rare anomalies such as alobar holoprosencephaly, with more of the M-SCAN devices deployed, the more likely we are in capturing these complications early in pregnancy and saving the life of the mother and that of the baby. 

The Horizon Prize will hence facilitate us with such funding to break into such low resource facilities with the main vision to decentralize access to ultrasound services.

The M-SCAN devices are compatible to multiple platforms. These include laptops, tablets and mobile phones. By converting the USB 3.0 end using an OTG cable into a 2.0 Micro B port, M-SCAN is able to work on all the platforms offering the sonographer with options from small interface to larger interface.

Our device is very power efficient, portable and 10x cheaper than the conventional ultrasound machines on the market.

With these features it can easily penetrate the complex Sub-Saharan geographies with bad connectivity, power access and terrible roads. In the long run facilitate ultrasound scanning even the hard to reach areas like islands where we have deployed a number of machines and had life saving scans done. 

We plan to deploy at-least 200 ultrasound devices in the next 5 years. 

With each device scanning at-least 10 pregnant women per day, we project to impact at-least 3.65 million pregnant women. 

Our Key Performance Indicators include;

1. Number of pregnant women scanned

2. Number of complications detected

3. Number of timely interventions done based on the scans

4. Number of successful referrals made using our results

M-SCAN THEORY OF CHANGE

M-SCAN Theory of Change

Our team is 50% female and 50% male. 

Our work space allows for inclusion through team building sessions out of the usual work spaces. This has allowed for more self awareness of our team and keeping mental health in check.