Altruistech Solution

According to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (2014), only 42% of the rural population had healthcare within 5 kilometers, compared to 87% of the urban population. This lack of access disproportionately affects rural communities, where most of the population resides. Thus, this solution aims to decrease carbon footprints in the rare disease healthcare space while centering patient priorities.

As of 2021, the estimated rural population in Kenya stands at around 35 million people, representing approximately 70% of the total population. These individuals face challenges accessing healthcare services, leading to delayed or inadequate medical attention and potentially worsening health outcomes.

Further research stated that most individuals cover over 5 hours by walking and 2.5 hours by car to access a healthcare facility. Based on data from primary research, some of the most significant factors contributing to this problem are geographical challenges such as long distances, rugged terrain, and lack of proper transportation infrastructure. These factors make it difficult for individuals to reach healthcare facilities promptly, especially during emergencies or for routine healthcare needs. In addition, inadequate healthcare infrastructure. Many rural communities in Kenya need more healthcare infrastructure, including healthcare facilities and trained medical professionals. More hospitals, clinics, and healthcare centers are often required in these areas, making it challenging for residents to access necessary medical services—finally, limited availability of healthcare professionals and socio-economic factors.

Altruistech is an offline mobile application designed to improve the diagnostic journey of rare disease patients in rural communities in Kenya. It aims to reduce the time, cost, resources, and duplicative travel and testing for patients and caregivers.

The application allows patients to input their feelings and report symptoms before booking a medical practitioner. It works on mobile devices and does not require a constant internet connection, making it accessible even in areas with limited connectivity.

It works in five  ways,

• Reduced Duplicative Travel and Testing: By providing comprehensive symptom information in advance, Altruistech helps lessen the need for patients to travel multiple times for follow-up appointments or undergo duplicative diagnostic tests. This streamlines the diagnostic journey, saves time and resources, and minimizes the burden on patients and caregivers.

• Informed Consultation: With access to the patient's reported symptoms, healthcare providers can conduct more informed consultations. They can ask specific questions, conduct targeted examinations, and recommend appropriate diagnostic tests or treatments based on the pre-appointment information.

• Patient Input: Patients open the Altruistech application on their mobile devices and input information about their current symptoms, pain levels, and general well-being. They can describe their symptoms, severity, duration, and other relevant details.

• Cost and Resource Efficiency: Altruistech contributes to cost and resource efficiency by optimizing the allocation of healthcare resources. With a better understanding of patients' conditions, healthcare providers can provide more targeted and efficient care, avoiding unnecessary tests, treatments, or referrals. This helps reduce healthcare costs and optimizes the use of limited resources.

• Booking Process: Once patients have provided their symptom information, they can book an appointment with a medical practitioner. The application uses an algorithm to prioritize urgent cases or allocate appropriate time slots based on the reported symptoms.

Furthermore, the mobile application technology operates offline, ensuring accessibility in areas with limited or no internet connectivity. By streamlining the diagnostic journey, Altruistech improves the rare disease patient experience by reducing the time, cost, resources, and duplicative travel and testing. It empowers patients to communicate their symptoms effectively, facilitates informed consultations for healthcare providers, and ultimately leads to more efficient and targeted healthcare delivery.

The target population that Altruistech aims to directly and meaningfully improve are individuals in rural communities (Tunkara County) in Kenya who are affected by rare diseases. Rare diseases are characterized by their low prevalence and often come with unique challenges in diagnosis, treatment, and access to specialized care. To understand their needs and engage them, Altruistech is using the patient-centered design approach by providing the following benefits:

• Access to Specialized Care: Rare diseases often require specialized knowledge and expertise for accurate diagnosis and management. However, such expertise may be limited in rural areas. Altruistech helps bridge this gap by providing rural patients a platform to report their symptoms and connect with healthcare providers who can access their information before the consultation. This facilitates access to specialized care, even in areas with scarce expertise.

• Improved Diagnostic Journey: Rare disease patients often experience delays and difficulty obtaining an accurate diagnosis. Altruistech helps address this by allowing patients to input their symptoms and well-being information before booking a medical practitioner. This comprehensive pre-appointment data provides healthcare providers with valuable insights, enabling more informed and efficient consultations and potentially reducing the time for diagnosis.

• Empowering Patient Engagement: Altruistech empowers rare disease patients by giving them an active role in their healthcare journey. By allowing patients to input their symptoms and express their feelings, the application ensures that healthcare providers hear and consider their voices and experiences. This patient engagement can improve communication, shared decision-making, and patient-centered care.

Reduced Time and Cost: The application aims to minimize the time, cost, and resources involved in the diagnostic journey for rare disease patients. Altruistech helps lessen the need for multiple visits, unnecessary tests, and referrals by streamlining the appointment scheduling process and facilitating informed consultations. This can significantly save patients' time and reduce the financial burden of multiple healthcare appointments and duplicative testing.

We adopted the human-centered design approach to understand the needs of those we serve. This approach helps capture valuable insights, inputs, and contributions from the community we are working with. 

Furthermore, during our problem identification stage, we got six volunteers from Turkana County. Through research and constant validation and testing, we have understood most of their health needs, and our team has representatives from each community in this county in Kenya.

Through focus group discussions and other forms of testing, the ideas of these representatives have improved our research and testing process. For example, we realized that there is a massive technology know-how deprivation in this community. Thus, using the mobile application might take a lot of work. However, they recommended having a telehealth booth representative in every community for those not technologically inclined.

We validated our concept via a landing page, and the feedback inspired us to move forward with our prototype building. So far, we have integrated automation that can automatically book a specific doctor immediately after the patient inputs their data, and this is currently being tested with 108 patients.

The MIT Solve 2023 Horizon Prize is a competition that aims to support and recognize innovative solutions addressing complex global challenges. By applying for this prize, we can overcome specific technical and legal barriers we currently face. For example, patenting a solution like Altruistech can involve legal complexities and costs that we may find challenging to navigate. Through this competition, we hope to get support in the form of legal advice and mentorship from experts in the field. This can help us understand the patenting process, guide us through the necessary legal steps, and provide insights on intellectual property protection.

Furthermore, The MIT Solve Horizon Prize provides a platform for showcasing our innovative solution to a global audience. Being recognized as a Solver or a prize winner enhances Altruistech's credibility and visibility. This recognition can attract potential investors, donors, and partners interested in supporting Altruistech financially, technically, or legally. In addition, the Solve network offers opportunities for networking, collaboration, and partnerships, which can help us overcome technical, financial, and legal barriers. Engaging with the Solve community can provide access to resources, expertise, and additional funding opportunities beyond the prize.

Our team lead is connected to the community by language and cultural understanding. He is familiar with the local languages, cultural norms, and practices. This understanding is crucial for effective communication, building trust, and developing solutions that resonate with the rural communities we aim to serve.

In addition, our team lead is connected to these communities through geographic proximity. He is geographically close to the target rural communities in Kenya. This proximity allows more accessible access to the communities, fostering a deeper understanding of their healthcare challenges, cultural dynamics, and specific needs.

Altruistech approaches the problem of improving the rare disease patient diagnostic journey in rural communities in Kenya in a new and significantly enhanced way by leveraging mobile technology and patient input to streamline the healthcare process.

As a standout solution, Altruistech has the potential to disrupt the market by redefining the traditional patient-doctor interaction. It challenges the conventional healthcare delivery model by incorporating patient-reported information into the diagnostic process. This disruption can lead to a shift in healthcare dynamics, emphasizing the importance of patient input and promoting patient-centered care across the industry.

Moreover, the successful implementation of Altruistech can inspire and encourage collaboration among stakeholders in the rare disease healthcare space. It can serve as a model for other regions and countries facing similar challenges, catalyzing the adoption of technology-driven solutions prioritizing patient needs. This broader adoption has the potential to revolutionize the market and drive positive changes in healthcare systems globally.

Furthermore, Altruistech generates a wealth of patient-reported data, which can be harnessed to derive valuable insights. Aggregated and anonymized data can be analyzed to identify patterns, trends, and emerging health issues in rural communities. This information can inform public health policies, rare disease research, and resource allocation, creating a positive ripple effect beyond individual patient care.

Altruistech's impact goal for the next year is to onboard many rare disease patients in rural communities in Kenya onto the Altruistech platform. This would be achieved through targeted awareness campaigns, community outreach, and partnerships with healthcare providers and organizations. Strategies such as leveraging local networks, conducting awareness workshops, and utilizing social media platforms could help achieve this goal. In addition, we seek strategic partnerships with local healthcare organizations, nonprofits, and funding agencies to enhance the reach and sustainability of Altruistech. Collaborating with established entities can provide access to resources, technical expertise, and additional funding opportunities. Engaging with potential partners, attending healthcare conferences, and actively networking within the healthcare ecosystem can help achieve this goal.

In the next five years, we aim to improve the diagnostic journey by reducing the time, cost, resources, and duplicative travel and testing for patients and caregivers. This could be accomplished by measuring the reduction in unnecessary healthcare appointments, travel expenses, and duplicated tests. Continuous feedback from patients and healthcare providers can help identify areas of improvement and guide refinements to the application's features and functionality.

Furthermore, we plan to expand the reach of Altruistech beyond rural communities in Kenya to other regions and countries facing similar healthcare challenges. This could involve adapting the application to different languages and cultural contexts, establishing partnerships with healthcare providers in new regions, and tailoring the solution to meet specific local needs. Scaling efforts would be supported by securing additional funding, hiring a larger team, and building a robust technical infrastructure.

Finally, we aim to foster collaborations with research institutions, universities, and rare disease advocacy groups to generate data-driven insights and contribute to rare disease research. By anonymizing and analyzing the aggregated data collected through Altruistech, valuable insights can be derived, contributing to medical research, public health policies, and understanding rare diseases on a broader scale.

Altruistech aligns with four of the 17 SDGs (3, 9, 12,17). Therefore we are measuring progress using the following indicators:

• Reduction in unnecessary healthcare appointments: This indicates the optimization of healthcare resources and reduction in patient burden;

• The number of rare disease patients in rural communities using Altruistech: This indicator measures the reach and adoption of the application;

• The proportion of rare disease patients from marginalized or disadvantaged groups using Altruistech: This indicator reflects the solution's reach and impact on reducing inequalities in healthcare access;

• Collaboration with research institutions: Assess the number and quality of partnerships established to generate valuable insights and contribute to the scientific community;

• The number of successful diagnostic journeys: Track the number of patients who received accurate and timely diagnoses, indicating improved healthcare outcomes.

Furthermore, these indicators can be tracked via our data collection and monitoring system.

Inputs: Mobile application development, patient and medical caregivers onboarding

Output: Patients have a user-friendly tool to input their health information, & Healthcare providers have access to detailed patient-reported data before appointments.

Short-term outcome: Improved communication, timely and accurate diagnoses, and reduced unnecessary travel and testing.

Long-term outcome: Improved patient experience, enhanced Healthcare efficiency, and increased access to specialized care.

The core technology that powers Altruistech is a mobile application with an intuitive and user-friendly interface allowing patients to input their symptoms and well-being information easily. The UI focuses on simplicity and accessibility, ensuring that even users with limited technical expertise can navigate and use the app effectively. The application securely stores the patient-reported data on the device and uses encryption techniques to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the information. This ensures that sensitive health data is stored securely and only accessible to authorized individuals. The synchronized patient data is stored securely in the cloud, which can be analyzed and utilized to generate insights. Aggregated and anonymized data can be analyzed to identify patterns, trends, and emerging health issues in rural communities. This data-driven approach can contribute to rare disease research and inform public health policies.

7 Fulltime staff, 3 part-time staff, and 18 volunteers

Ten months

Altruistech application incorporates input from diverse users, including individuals from different socio-economic backgrounds, age groups, and cultural contexts. By involving a diverse range of users in the design process, the team creates a solution that meets the specific needs and preferences of the target population.  The team is also working on localizing the application to different languages spoken in the target communities. This will enable users with limited proficiency in the dominant language to easily access and utilize the application. We also incorporate culturally appropriate imagery, language, and symbols within the application to ensure it resonates with the diverse user base.

Subscription Model: Altruistech operates on a subscription-based model where users pay a recurring fee to access the application and its features. The subscription fee is $2 a month.

Freemium Model: we also offer a basic version of the application for free to ensure accessibility and adoption among our customers. Additional premium features, such as advanced data analytics or personalized health recommendations, are offered as paid upgrades.

Partnerships with Healthcare Providers: We also partner with healthcare providers, clinics, and hospitals. Altruistech is offered as a value-added service to the healthcare providers' patients in this model. Healthcare providers pay a licensing or usage fee for accessing and utilizing the application to enhance their diagnostic processes and improve patient outcomes.

Strategic Partnerships: We plan to partner with healthcare providers, clinics, research institutions, and other stakeholders in the rare disease space. Collaborate to create value-added services, conduct joint initiatives, or co-develop solutions that leverage the capabilities of Altruistech. Such partnerships can lead to revenue-sharing arrangements, licensing fees, or service contracts, contributing to financial stability.

Data Monetization: With proper consent and privacy measures, aggregated and anonymized data collected through Altruistech can be analyzed and utilized for research, public health studies, or collaborations with pharmaceutical companies. These collaborations can generate revenue through data licensing agreements, research partnerships, or data-driven insights for drug development.

Cost Optimization: We aim to continuously review and optimize operational costs, infrastructure expenses, and development efforts to ensure efficiency and cost-effectiveness. This includes optimizing cloud storage usage, utilizing open-source technologies, and adopting scalable solutions to accommodate growth without significant cost increases.

Seek Funding Opportunities: We seek to actively pursue grants, sponsorships, and funding opportunities from government agencies, N.G.O.s, foundations, and corporate entities that align with the mission and objectives of Altruistech. These funding sources can support research, development, and ongoing operations financially.

We have received a grant of $200,000 in tech assets from C.O.V.R. security.