MIT Solve

Solution Overview & Team Lead Details

Solution name.

FIST MED CARE

Provide a one-line summary of your solution.

Creation of a virtual hospital that allows quick and low cost access to health care services via a mobile application and messaging service in Burundi.

What specific problem are you trying to solve?

Almost half of the Burundian population lives below the poverty line. According to data from the Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies of Burundi (ISTEEBU), slightly more than half of the Burundian population, or 51.4%, are poor. Illiteracy and underemployment are among the major factors of poverty. In addition, low economic growth compared to population growth has led to a continuous increase in the poverty rate, which has reached approximately 87.1% in 2021 according to the World Bank. The conditions of financial access to health care are becoming difficult and social inequalities are multiplying, which does not really help the country to ensure good health for all.

1. Many deaths are reported in emergency cases due to the lack of medical data that allow for rapid treatment of patients, especially those of the most vulnerable population, including women. Maternal mortality in Burundi remains one of the highest in the world, with 500 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, with hemorrhaging at 25% being one of the main causes.

2. Women from rural communities suffer more than others due to the lack of means to treat complications after childbirth, including obstetric fistula, which is a real health problem in Burundi. Only one woman in 50 has access to obstetric fistula treatment.

3. Patients do not consult in time due to lack of means while travelling, others remain in ignorance by self-medicating because they cannot discuss in time with a health professional, which further worsens the health of the population

Elevator pitch

What is your solution?

Thanks to the FIST application (fast support in short time) and a messaging service (SMS), the Burundian population will be able to benefit from a virtual hospital that will allow them

To stay connected to a health professional 7 days a week to discuss, ask for advice and gain appointments without making expenses by moving using the mobile application for those with a smartphone or a SMS service for those without a smartphone or an internet connection.

The mortality rate in emergency cases requiring blood transfusions after a road accident or after childbirth will be reduced because the person will be able to carry a code in the form of a bracelet or card that can be scanned by a health professional and have access to all the medical information needed to quickly take care of the person such as his blood type and others in the immediate.

Women, especially from the rural community, will be able to benefit from a mobile micro-insurance for obstetric fistula care, the biggest disease that stigmatizes Burundian women and takes away their joy of living.

Who does your solution serve? In what ways will the solution impact their lives?

The present project falls under the sector of E-health, the new technologies, which are a sector that is revolutionizing the field of health in the world by improving significantly the care of all people consulting health providers in different health structures. The benefits of new technologies are no longer to be proven in the improvement of every health system in the world.

Today they allow, in the world, to be more efficient to make medical appointments, to carry out administrative procedures, to consult at a distance, to be in continuous follow-up outside the consultations thus allowing to improve the quality of the care of the patients.

In Burundi, the health sector is not sufficiently digitalized as it should be, referring to other developing countries that have invested in new technologies and improved their health system.

The digitization of the health system in Burundi is essential to contribute to the objective of increasing accessibility to quality health services for the population.

Thus, these conditions currently offer a great opportunity to contribute to development in the health sector.

the project will serve the Burundian population by offering them a space to stay connected to a health professional, by processing their medical records to make them accessible and more particularly by offering a micro-insurance service by mobile to Burundian women for postpartum care including the obstetric complication which represents a major health problem in Burundi

How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?

I am a young student from the University of Burundi in the faculty of medicine at the university hospital center of kamenge ROI khaled in 4th Baccalaureate and young Entrepreneur. I have always shone with a spirit of initiative with a passion for wanting to be a role model for other young people, especially young girls. Throughout my training since high school in the scientific section A Maths-Physics, I was one of the best students and my behavior was beyond reproach.

Dynamism being my strong point, I participated in various national and international competitions, meetings and courses organized by organizations and the media until being crowned MISS SPEAKER EAST-AFRICA 2019 during the Miss Career competitions bringing together the countries of the East African Community held in Kigali, Rwanda.

Among the great Burundian intellectuals, I was selected to participate in the first National Forum on the development of Burundi which was chaired by his Excellency the President of the Republic Evariste NDAYISHIMIYE and for the year 2022 I was chosen as a delegate to represent my country at the You lead summit held in arusha, Tanzania. On this project, I will work with competent people like me, including two young students from the Faculty of Medicine and a computer engineer. the two girls on my team are also at the same university as me, they each have decision-making positions within ABEM which is the Burundian association of medical students which is an association with a great impact in Burundi through community projects carried out since its existence

What steps have you taken to understand the needs of the population you want to serve?

Within the ABEM association in which we evolve me and my team as volunteers we have carried out several projects in the communities which have allowed us to be close to the population to discuss the various health problems they face. The problem was the same because without financial means they cannot benefit from quality health services. To eradicate poverty is a big problem that involves the Burundian state in all areas of life and this cannot be done in a moment. This is where we were inspired by an idea or solution that would allow the population to have access to health services but at a low cost. The motivation is enormous because we do not yet have such a service in Burundi. What would be a great impact to carry out this project

Which aspects of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Improving healthcare access and health outcomes; and reducing and ultimately eliminating health disparities (Health)

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Concept: An idea being explored for its feasibility to build a product, service, or business model based on that idea.

In what city, town, or region is your solution team located?

Bujumbura, Burundi

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Munezero ornella

More About Your Solution

If your solution has a website or an app, provide the link here:

0

What makes your solution innovative?

Our project will undertake the creation of a mobile application that will facilitate the connection of five referral hospitals in Burundi and different specialized doctors in order to allow a quick, up to the minute care with a portable medical record by the patient in the form of a code and that the doctor will be able to easily scan thanks to the application installed in his Smartphone which will increase the performance of health professionals thanks to a better availability and accessibility of patient data.

Once the code (QR) is scanned, it will allow him to quickly access the patient's medical information wherever he is and whenever he wants to start his treatment.

This mobile application is of great importance in health services for developing countries such as Burundi, it will reduce the expenses and time that patients take by unnecessarily redoing the medical examinations requested by the doctor as soon as these patients consult another health structure.

For emergency services, the doctor will be able to take care of the patient quickly because the patient, whether conscious or not, will have his or her health passport on him or her, and the information will be useful for the doctor to start treatment and save lives.

Women who give birth, patients suffering from malaria and transmissible diseases such as HIV-AIDS as well as victims of accidents,... such are the groups requiring blood transfusion. These groups cannot be treated quickly if the blood type of the person is not known in order to transfuse good blood. Volunteer blood donors also have to meet certain requirements by undergoing certain tests to prove the eligibility of the donor. Most of these tests, as well as those of the laboratories, are tests that can be done once and that is enough.

If today a person consults in a nearby health facility and tomorrow he/she needs to go there, what can prove at the minute that the person has already done his/her tests at a health professional?

so therefore the Fist app will facilitate these services.

What are your impact goals for the next year, and how will you achieve them?

Our impact goals are :

1. To enable at least 70% of the Burundian population to have their medical records on them and available for consultation by a health professional at any time and at any health facility in Burundi, thanks to new digital technologies, within 3 years.

2. Allow at least 70% of the population to be able to consult and discuss online with a health professional via the mobile application and messaging service within 3 years.

3. Reduce to at least 50% the number of obstetrical fistulas among young rural women in Burundi through a mobile micro-insurance service that will strengthen financial access to health care within 3 years.

To achieve this, it would first be necessary to set up the company, which requires funds. We are already preparing a bankable business plan that will allow us to find investors. and before launching our product we will start by raising awareness among the Burundian population to remind them of the benefits of new technologies in the field of health and how to use the product we offer them

Describe the core technology that powers your solution.

Our solution is an application that offers 3 services. Once installed on a smartphone, you can easily chat with an approved health professional, ask for advice or appointments. The second service is that the application processes the patient's medical data. Each person will have a QR code on a card or wristband. A health professional with our application will be able to know the patient's code and have the patient's profile in the application with the necessary information such as his blood group, his age, his sex, his allergies, chronic diseases and others informations. For the confidentiality of patient data, only approved doctors can scan the code. And the third service is a mobile micro-insurance space that will benefit women who subscribe to our service for postpartum care, particularly obstetric fistula.

Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:

Software and Mobile Applications

In which countries do you currently operate?

Burundi

How many people does your solution currently serve, and how many do you plan to serve in the next year? If you haven’t yet launched your solution, tell us how many people you plan to serve in the next year.

within a year we expect to serve at least 30% of the Burundian population and in 3 years at least 70% of the population will benefit from our service

What barriers currently exist for you to accomplish your goals in the next year?

The barriers we face in Burundi are; a problem of connection. But it is precisely a problem that the Burundian state is in the process of taking in hand. The other problem is that the majority of people are not up date with the digitization of services, but thanks to the awareness campaigns that we will do, there is great hope that this will succeed because the field of health is a vital area and anyone can easily join

Your Team

Business Model