Improving to equitable healthcare using mobile technology

Our problem assessment survey found out that 9 out of 10 informal workers in a city like Lagos do not have access to or recognise a convenient means of financing their healthcare and that of their loved ones. This disparity is the largest when compared to those from the formal work sector with organised means of health security. Today, the informal sector and other vulnerable groups such as those living with rare illnesses contribute the most to any economy around the world, for instance in Nigeria, about 70% of the labour force are attributed to the informal sector - identifying the existing gap in healthcare delivery for developing economies around the world and the fact that those in the informal work sector are highly underserved indicates how targeted solutions to address the problem of access to quality healthcare, financing and infrastructure development among this huge population will take the world closer to achieving the universal health coverage agenda in Nigeria and the rest of Africa. Below are specific problems Hi-FIn Care seeks to solve:

• Increasing healthcare delivery and access gap in Nigeria and the rest of Africa.

• Inaccessibility to safe social and medical hub to connect persons with rare diseases to quick medical and psychosocial interventions.

• High neglect for the informal work sector by health insurers that have heavily concentrated on satisfying the formal and corporate work sector only accounted for about 30% of Nigeria's labour force.

• Ineffective health financing structure for low-income earners.

Technology and access to mobile phones have continued to show a lot of promise in the last 5 years in Africa with several innovations linked to owning a mobile phone, especially in Nigeria where internet and mobile phone penetration has increased to over 60% and more people and businesses can easily be connected by tech-driven solutions.

At Hi-Fin Care we leverage the use of technology and adapt the existing financing model that exists in the informal market where those in the sector save periodically using a thrift contribution model in meeting their financial obligations in creating a web-based and mobile application where our customers can sign-up to access and stay connected with health institutions such as hospitals, clinics, pharmacy, laboratories in their neighbourhoods as well as health professionals while having the option to personalize their medical savings for immediate, or future medical emergencies. The following process steps are involved in our solutions:

1. Identify and engage health institutions and specialised professionals to enlist their services on Hi-Fin Care digital platform to enhance their reach and visibility to members of their community. Hi-Fin Care offers health institutions push messaging services to send instant messaging to pool of customers in their community promoting community health and health information

2. Educate and support members of the informal work communities with how to use their phones to download Hi-FIn Care app and the option to use USSD code where some of them do not have smart phones in order to access health services in their community and other features on the app

3. Engage, educate and enquire with artisans and those in the informal work sector to understand social and behavioral barriers existing for them to access healthcare while using the feedback to improve Hi-Fin Care digital platform

4. Customers could create a personalised savings plan for their healthcare, share resources using community financing model to contribute to other member of their community, and pay for subsidized healthcare in their community using H-Fin Care platform.

5. Persons with disabilities and rare diseases are able to signup on Hi-Fin Care digital platform to access educational information, therapy and medical aid as well as support groups in a click of button

Hi-Fin Care's target population are the informal workforce (artisans, traders, blue-collar jobs, apprentices) male-female aged 16 - 55 years old in Nigeria and Africa. 9 out of 10 these individuals in Nigeria do not have access to health education, insurance or information about health solutions in their communities thereby exposing them to the risk of self-medication, and the use of unorthodox medical practices using unregulated traditional herbal products which often have a long term effect on their health. Our solutions are accompanied by education to sensitize our target population about health choices and how their mobile phones can solve a lot of problems associated with locating health institutions in their community, saving the disposable income they spend on herbs periodically to finance their healthcare, and access community health information at their fingertips

Secondly, Hi-Fin Care is testing its digital platform among those with rare diseases in Nigeria in order to connect them to specialise medical and therapy services available in Nigeria. There is also a psycho-social support and peer-to-peer digital services to support the wellbeing of those living with rare diseases.

Our big idea is that the informal workforce within the low-income bracket with a mobile phone can access quality healthcare, health services and health information that they deserve regardless of their economic status, tech exposure or education. To achieve this, our plan is to:

   6 Months

• Recruit 5 - 10 Field Officers

• Onboard 2400 new users from 2 locations in Lagos

• Connect 10 healthcare providers to Hi-FIn Care digital platforms, at least 5 from each location identified

• Deploy USSD infrastructure to support Hi-Fin Care subscribers

• Launching and scaling

3 Years

• Have over 50,000 active users of our platforms in Lagos

• Nationwide service coverage

• Cross country market scoping

• Acquire advanced technology infrastructure to support Hi-Fin Care growing users and team

• Provide over 2500 jobs across Nigeria with various functions, roles and departments

Hi-Fin Care has its office headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria and its operation is currently based in 2 communities in Lagos. We have 3 teams supporting our operations;

1. The Customer Engagement Team comprising of 5 Field officers and 1 Customer care officer. The field officers mostly visit potential and existing customers in the informal industries in the 2 communities we serve to set up and enrol customers on our platform, educate customers on the features and benefits Hi-FIn Care offers, and support in collecting data to support Hi-Fin Care tech development, and other business agenda. The Customer Care officer provide telephone and social media support to meet customers' complaints or provide assistance in areas where customers are trying to access healthcare services in their communities or have questions.

2. The Tech Team is comprised of 2 persons whose responsibilities are to develop new features for Hi-Fin Care digital platforms based on the insights observed from customers' feedback, and they ensured Hi-Fin Care website and mobile apps are updated and optimised to support customers and health institutions using Hi-Fin Care platforms to facilitate communication and connections.

3. The Administrative Team are responsible for strategy development, partners' engagement and essentially talking to health institutions and stakeholders in the communities we serve or communities we have identified as interested in starting operation to understand and identify opportunities and threat for collaboration and partnership in meeting the needs of the customers that are using our platforms in their communities

Hi-Fin Care aims to be the leading company in the world that is solving the global healthcare challenges for developing economies with a scalable model. Becoming MIT Solver will enable Hi-Fin Care to be able to:

• Improve its upscaling design for customer acquisition and retention

• Benefit from MIT Solve enterprise networks to support, understand and scope Hi-Fin Care technology infrastructures and rollout

• Be part of MIT Solve's success in becoming an economically viable institution contributing to the growth of Nigeria's economy and solving global health issues for developing economies

• Access mentoring, funding and community support

Hi-Fin Care solutions address majorly those working in the informal sector and those with rare diseases who are least prioritised by health insurers because of the real and perceived risk of low disposable income, cultural block to accepting new innovation, among other economic issues associated with persons from this sector. Hi-Fin Care recognised this threat as an opportunity to educate persons from this sector to appreciate and be aware how technology through the use of their mobile phones can make life easy, learn about their health and community and get support when necessary which they have often considered stressful in real-time. 

Hi-Fin Care is building a new approach to telemedicine where customers considered not ready for change can engage with healthcare institutions, and in the same breathe support and encourage health institutions to improve their services for underserved members of their communities using push-messaging support and other digital campaigns available to them via Hi-Fin platforms by just signing up.  

To address the issue of financing, Hi-FIn Care model the existing thrift contribution model used by persons in the informal work sector to save for their monthly or periodic obligations to create a personalized digital wallet for users of the Hi-Fin Care app to save from time to time based on a defined choice of daily, weekly or monthly.

Hi-Fin Care will have an evolutionary impact as it continues to scale potential to integrate and close massively the healthcare and financing gap in Nigeria and Africa, as well as improve healthcare service delivery and infrastructure development in the future, especially as access to technology continues to grow in Africa

This year, Hi-Fin Care will be scaling its operations from Lagos State of Nigeria to 5 States of Nigeria with the projection of increasing our active customer base to 300,000 and over 1000 health institutions partners.

In the next five years, Hi-Fin Care will be operating across 2 to 3 African countries, upgrading its services to fully support health insurance, health infrastructural developing and financing among other health fintech possibilities.

Some of the ways we are measuring progress toward impact are:

1. Reducing out-of-pocket health financing burden on those in the informal sector who have difficulty prioritizing and saving for their healthcare. Hi-Fin Care presents its customers with support to save the least disposal income for their health and those of their loved ones without fear of health emergencies

2. By helping health institutions increase their service delivery more efficiently in managing community health, medical appointments and service referrals

3. As Hi-FIn Care continue to expand its operations to new communities, it presents members of the community and people job opportunities to work with us, reducing unemployment and improving the economy of Nigeria

Our solutions aligned with SGD goals 1, 3, 10, 17

Some of the factors contributing to the healthcare gap in the informal work sector in Nigeria are trust, education and lack of institutional support. Hi-Fin Care approach to use its community and field officers in educating and training persons in the informal work on healthy living and flexible mobile financing choices in modern times. These activities are important to reduce the trust deficit affecting our customers in accessing healthcare, eliminate the precarious habit of depending on unprofessional street herbs products for their healthcare. While engaging in the education and training of our customers, Hi-Fin Care introduces the use of mobile technology to our customers who do not recognise its importance in supporting health financing with their mobile phones - introducing this technology to our customers also further strengthens the advancement of mobile money and promotes the cashless economy policy of the Nigeria government.

Our solutions are primarily driven using the mobile application which is currently accessible to our customers on Google Playstore, this solution is supported with SMS technology to facilitate push notification services for healthcare providers, and the use of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD code) to support service delivery to customers who are not using smartphones.

Hi-Fin Care's leadership structure is very diverse in terms of the skillset and industry experience of its founding members with over 35 years work experience combined cutting across Research, Public Health and Infrastructure Development, Law and Geospatial-Intelligence; the leadership of Hi-Fin Care's effort and strategy is focused and specifically targeted towards persons with informal jobs in Nigeria and Africa who are structurally categorised and systematically excluded by health insurers in Nigeria. The history of health financing in Nigeria has always been linked to supporting primarily those in the corporate business environment and some of those working in government evident in the Nigeria Health Financing Schemes and policies. Our work is deliberately focused on addressing the equality issues found as limitations to universal healthcare fundament to everyone regardless of the nature of one work or sector. Supporting this claim, our interactions, and engagement strategy are tied to only those in the informal work environment, artisans, and apprentices in that sector who do not have the technology or structural support to integrate them into the public or private healthcare system of Nigeria.