SeeAdoctor

SeeADoctor is committed to eliminate disease outbreaks in Africa. We have witnessed uncontrolled Ebola, Diarrhea, Listeriosis outbreaks, and with one leading to the death of my father in 2017.

Our proposed solution is an Ai solution that enables patients to have a video call with a Doctor, Psychologist or Dietician from anywhere at anytime. 70% of the diseases can be resolved using video conferencing.

See-A-Doctor maps genetic data, geography and consultation medical history to keep an eye on location outbreaks, assist healthcare consultant to prescribe the most suitable medication taking into account allergies and for predictive modeling for healthcare optimization. Machine learning module is ideal in creating a healthcare worker assistant-doctor and with a long term view of reducing patient doctor ratio  

With smartphones becoming affordable, See-A-Doctor is built for smartphones as a result enabling anyone who owns a phone to have easy access to Doctors / Physicians. 

In 2017 my father battled with diarrhea related illness and he spent a lot of time and money traveling long distances to and from the hospital. On arrival queues at the hospital were long because the doctor patient ratio is 1 to 4300. "I often wondered that some of the illnesses he caught were at the hospital queue."

Forgoing checkups and resorting to health tips from unqualified friends was the norm. At the funeral I learnt that the challenge of access to Doctors or educational information was not unique to our community, World health report (WHO) stated that the healthcare worker deficit in Africa will be 4,5 million by 2035 while population will be 2 billion. 

The Association of American Medical Colleges predicts that by 2025, USA will see a deficit of over 130,000 primary care doctors. 33% of doctors are nearing retirement and there aren’t enough following to fill these shoes.

Lack of doctors is leading to the mushrooming of fraudulent healthcare workers who sale their services particularly in the rural areas for unaccredited consultation and medication.

Another challenge is doctors prescribe general medicine without comprehensive health records like possible allergies or external factors such as area illness outbreak.

SeeAdoctor is primarily serving communities in townships as they are densely populated with middle and low income earners. I have engaged 20 doctor currently servicing Soweto (Johannesburg, South Africa) and within a few weeks assisted almost 400 patients without any marketing budget.

15% Working class: efficiency of no long queues, commute time or having to take time off work to see a doctor. 

48% Elderly: Providing a safer medicinal route for those with mobility issues or who may have troubles venturing out. Many have been left on the sidelines when it comes to receiving adequate healthcare. Some dealing with disabilities and illnesses as a result of Apartheid in South Africa but unfortunately, are dispersed across rural areas that are virtually inaccessible to quality care.

5% Family checkup: It can be a kerfuffle trying to get the whole family ready for route doctor checkup and yet in can be done in minutes on SeeADoctor

12% Millennials and the (30%)other (data not supplied) 

The most common issues we service are Depression, Injuries Conjunctivitis, Suspicious skin rash or bites, Fever, Heartburn or diarrhea, Skin infection, Yeast or urinary tract infection, Sore throat or cough and Quick medical questions (such as medication interactions)

Seeadoctor.Africa is an online Web app, the platform runs on HTML database, Joomla and leverages from existing video technology plugins such as TokBox and hosted on Amazon Web Service (AWS). 

When a patient visits SeeAdoctor website, they are required to register and verify of email and thereafter prompted to complete basic information about themselves such personal information, medical schemes they are a part, contact information, location, family network and health data to from BMI to allergies and existing conditions. We use standard 256bit AES block cipher and SHA2 encryption to ensure patient sensitive information is under unbreakable lock-and-key.

When the patient has signed up or registered they have full access to a Psychologist, Medical Doctor or Dietician.

With minimum information entered patients, can either request to consult with a doctor Now or at a Scheduled time and date. The request is simply done by clicking a button and completing 3 questions on the pop-up screen, so that the doctor knows what to expect. 

When a consultation request is made we try our level best to match the patient with a doctor near to them and preferred language. Apart from video the doctor is equipped with the patient file, brief indication of the patient illness, area of where the patient is calling from, chat option for file exchange and option to send prescription after the call.

The video is a plugin from openTok and costs $9.99 monthly subject to volume.

Similarly to Uber, after the call the patient has the option to rate the Doctor, we do this to ensure service efficiency. After the call the doctor is prompted to add brief notes about the call and these are automatically stored and saved on the clients file.

Tele-medicine is not unique but our sustainability model is. From our research we learnt that they's resistance in paying for intangible service online and given our appetite for volume and the need to cater for the excluded market, the only way we are reaching the desired growth levels is by offering Free access to healthcare.   

We currently service with Psychologist, Doctor and Dietician at no cost. This is currently not offered worldwide.

Our premise is simple given the need and the volume, the only paying clients are those that want preferential times or clients that want to jump the queue.

The behavioral design from the service rating will allow us to improve the healthcare worker and patient relationship which in Africa low. 

Our technology makes use of existing technology plugins such as:

OpenTok: video chat feature with ancillaries like live chat, file transfer

Amazon Web Service (AWS): Hosting and security feature to ensure the information is protected

Artificial Intelligence: To help the consultant by making suggestions, given the curated patient information and external area data on possible outbreaks. 

In the near future we are looking at rolling out kiosks to help patients with basic required reading/measure of blood pressure, height and mass ...

In first world countries Tele-medicine on the rise as many people are starting to see just how convenient and effective it is to see your doctor from home, however, many still aren’t convinced that it is an adequate stand-in for a traditional doctor’s visit. In some ways telemedicine actually surpasses brick-and-mortar medicine by allowing the efficiency of skipping waiting rooms, commute time or having to take time off work to see a doctor and providing continuing care for chronic conditions and furnishing a safer medicinal route for those with mobility issues or the elderly who may have troubles venturing out.

Most importantly it's Free, in Africa the bottleneck of startups solutions is cost. Given cost, tele-medicine break through in Africa is nonexistent. We are hopeful that this hack we will serve the 1 billion Africans.

We are currently servicing 359 users on SeeADoctor.   

In year one with zero marketing budget we expect to get to 50 000 users. A conservative growth will allow us to fix bugs and assemble building blocks for growth and raise capital for an App.

With smart phones becoming affordable, internet penetration at 54% which represents a 31 million population in South Africa alone, population increase and our expansion to rest of the continent from year 2. In about 5 years we expect to get to 40 million users conservatively.

Next year, my goal is to start building an IOS an Android application to create a better experience for users.

Additional human capital to assist with debugging, blogging/communication, training and on boarding more doctors.

We are looking at purchasing Kiosks that will be stationed in various clinics and key areas to present an alternative for patients waiting in long queues.

In longer stretch within 5 years, our plan is to furnish service in various local languages although mainly English, French and Portuguese will remain primary. Working with drone delivery companies will be a plus in helping us deliver medicine quicker.

Although all is in early stages but our vision is very clear to us.

Frankly the main barrier is capital. With sufficient capital within the 5 years we will be at an incredible position, focusing mainly on 3rd world countries. The funding will allow us onboard additional resource, healthcare specialist and ensure our technology is world class while we focus on promoting SeeAdoctor platform.

The additional cultural barriers are many still aren’t convinced that SeeAdoctor is an adequate stand-in for a traditional doctor’s visit. Educational interventions are required, to inform our clients with work scope.

Medicine delivery is currently slow and delivery cars have route-area limits

Currently smartphones and internet connectivity is expensive, our platform SeeAdoctor is data absorbing and can be expensive for patients that engage in long calls.

Applying to grant issuers is a start and hence this application. Winning this grant will not only support SeeAdoctor with working capital (runway) but give us tenacity drive to keep going in helping one life at a time.

The posible media partnership and technical mentorship will be pivotal in addressing some of the bottlenecks. 

Within the next 5 year we plan to partner or develop a drone medicine delivery solution that will compliment our standard system and reduce delivery time.

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Full time 1 (Myself, visionary), responsible for driving the company vision forward and design 

Contractor 1 (Website developer), writing code

Part time 1 (Website Testing), responsible for system testing and quality assurance 

In total 3 people.

The current team members are far from the final team, effectively Mussa and I have brainstormed the solution and championed and self funded the prototype. We are currently outsourcing the software development and also looking to onboard a full-time technology resource or co-founder. 

Emmanuel Luthuli: Background in Actuarial science and product development for the largest medical aid in South Africa. I am involved in research, finance and shaping the narrative of SeeAdoctor vision

Mussa Mpelepele: Background in Actuarial science and has experience in financial services. Mussa is involved in the day-today website testing and client service.

Saad Technology: Outsourced company that has helped us with developing the website to it's current state.

With capital I will be able to furnish a minimum salary plus equity to the targeted industry individuals.

Currently we have a handshake agreement with Clicks a pharmacy that helps with deliveries. Click has about 400 stores across the country and they have furnished us their medicine database to also ensure that doctors prescribe medicine that's available.

We also have partnered with 24 Healthcare consultants that service our patients.

Using a smartphone, computer or laptop, at the click of button our clients are able to access a medical doctor, psychologist or dietician from anywhere at anytime. This service is offered generally free.

We know that 78% of illnesses can be resolved via SeeAdoctor telemedicine platform and thereby improving efficiencies. Our key customers are patients that value their time or generally lack access to healthcare consultants.

We provide our clients access to healthcare consultants through a video call platform online, plus deliver medication should the need exist. Our clients have the option to request a doctor "now" or schedule an appointment. 

When a patient makes a request, our system sends a push notification to available doctors within the area and the first doctor to respond, services the client. In some cases this is followed by walk-in physical service.

We are also observing growing interest from the working class, that want on demand service.

Our revenue model is based on the hypothesis that "we will have a high volume of people that want to see a doctor". From our side we charge clients that want to Cut the online queue or those that want to schedule Key Preferential times.

Also given SeeAdoctor structure we are able to issue section 18A tax breaks to doctors that offer their services at low cost.

Generally our service is Free 

We will sustain SeeAdoctor in 2 ways.

Our hypothesis is "we will have a high volume of people that want to see a doctor". Given that, this will create a market for those that want to jump the queue. We will then charge for jumping the queue.

For those that schedule to see a doctor we have preferential-times (40%) within the platform that come at a cost. 

Charged rates are pay $9 / 15mins to see a doctor.

Lastly given our hybrid registration structure we will continue to source donations, well wishers can donate via our website to keep SeeAdoctor running. 

Mainly for the funding, and Solve being an MIT initiative we are hopeful that we will establish tech networks where MIT students will use SeeAdoctor for their research purposes or vacation work to help improve the efficiency of our Ai module.

Winning the Solve competition will validate our startup, eliminate internal forms of doubt and promote SeeAdoctor in the publications. The profile could win us speaking engagements.

Entrepreneurship is a lonely journey and we would appreciate insights from fellow Solve finalists as well as the lessons community. Furthermore we would also be happy to share and educate colleges about our experiences.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the world class institute has a wealth of students that could assist us develop our startup further in exchange for vacation work or research pipeline.

Save the Children, the successful organization has a strong focus on education and we would like pitch healthcare as an area of interest.

Health Ministries, government department generally hold the gateway to licensing and legal matters and with their partnership SeeDoctor would be in a favorable position.

Vodafone Americas Foundation, has great interest in women healthcare and we share common values

Google, has established labs and data that could be a catalyst in our quest of establishing an efficient Ai solution to make suggestions for Doctor

Flagship pioneering, they have a strong focus on healthcare would love to share notes and glean on their insights that could take SeeAdoctor forward.

Partnership with women organizations would bode well for us given the morbidity rates in mainly Africa. Using such organization would help not only with distribution but with education as well. 

SeeAdoctor system currently is free and expected to collect huge volumes of curated data from regions that researchers and health organizations have not been and spotting outbreaks quicker. Keeping the system Free will require grant funding and the data size will consistently be function of the working capital. 

With the prize we will develop IOS and Android mobile Apps to stay on the pulse of our users and increase frequency use. With the neural network, our system is expected to connect data-points using both internal (health files) plus external information to make 95% confidence interval "suggestions" to the doctor to accurately diagnose and prescribe. Students generally do not expect salaries but stipends and a co-assistance with the academic college offsets only travel costs.

Our medical partners are charging us a rate of $20 per hour, for us to gather the critical user mass we need an average of 4 doctors working, 10 hours daily.  

We envisage this process to improve service speed and service levels. We also know that MIT is establishing an Ai school and therefore a go to place to take SeeAdoctor to the next level.

The patient doctor ratio will always be a challenge give the volume of current medical students, due to lack of funding for education and training. the need for doctors will exist and with us providing this at no cost to our client furnishes an edge.

Our vision is to make SeeAdoctor platform open source to allow doctors to easily assist their patients with illness management without patients traveling to them. With curated records, patients will be efficiently attended to.

Our dietician partners support day-to-day and self health routines. The easy access nudges the patient to make more frequent doctor check-ups.

Data is important to us in order to best service our clients and improve user experience. 

All our doctors are fully qualified and operate under a Health Professional Council license that prevents any malicious activity. 

SeeAdoctor system uses simple language under the terms and conditions, furthermore information such as location, client details is sourced from user directly by accepting pop-up message. 

SeeAdoctor has solid level of information protection, we use government-standard 256bit AES block cipher and SHA2 encryption to ensure user sensitive information is under unbreakable lock-and-key. We also strictly adheres to Healthcare privacy laws so needless to say, user medical information is safe.

The information mined from the user is made visible to the client. We use nameless big data to map trends and statistically make suggestions to healthcare workers or outbreaks (TB, diarrhea etc).