“There is a critical need for technology in the healthcare sector, Nigeria's healthcare indices is very poor and among one of the worst in the world.”
Sabaoth Technologies developed the All Purpose Medical Information System (APMIS) on the basis that technology provides the most effective way to disrupt the entire healthcare delivery system.
Sabaoth founder, Simpa Dania, tells us about the journey so far, the challenges as well as the prospect for the company in digitizing data at a large scale in the healthcare sector.
Funding
The major source of funding for the company has been from the founder, friends and family. However, the product started generating revenue in the past six months.
The Problem
Part of the problems that the company is working towards solving is that technology is not well grounded within the context of healthcare delivery in Nigeria and African by extension.
The young and growing company also identifies that at the core of healthcare problem is communication as well as data exchange. And that technology solution in the sector hand in the air and are not grounded in the regular care process.
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The solution
“What we are providing is at the base, a platform for healthcare interaction to occur.”
Sabaoth Technologies through the APMIS is working at providing a technology platform for healthcare interaction using a B2B model, for the hospitals and others in the healthcare delivery industry to manage their clients’ health. APMIS addresses issues relating to digitized data exchange as well as communication.
APMIS, with a code base of over 2GB, has about 27 modules on its platform, which Dania said is perhaps the most extensive in the industry. Some of the modules include Clinic Management & Documentation, Health Insurance, Research & Data Exchange, User Management, Pharmacy, Laboratory & Laboratory Records, Health Insurance, Telemedicine, Human Resources, Communication, Accounting & Payroll, Patient Portal among others. These modules can be configured to serve any healthcare delivery establishment.
I see APMIS as an information system for the health care sector for a connected industry where everybody benefits from the value either in the healthcare service delivery, research or even administration.
The value added to patients is that they would have access to continuity of care irrespective of the health institutions they have used in the past. So in years to come, I could walk into a hospital in any part of the country and all I’d need to provide is a medical identification number. The doctor attending to me can better relate my past medical record to my present health condition.
In the company's pipeline is a B2C solution, a healthcare delivery solution using voice to cater for the unlearned in their local dialect.
Through the solution, health institutions and patients would be connected to Nigeria's finest and best health care institutions while also gaining access to experts within or outside the country irrespective of the health facility’s geographical location.
The Company
“Our core deliverables are improving profitability, improving quality of care and improving efficiency for healthcare delivery organizations.”
The company started implementing the APMIS two years ago. However, according to the founder, the product is yet to launch.
The company seeks to solve the basic problem of putting technology in healthcare delivery in manner that makes it sticky for both providers and clients. The solution has been in product development phase for 6 years while implementation started within the past two years, and one can say the long shot paid off as the solution over the past six month has being serving 8 healthcare delivery institutions with a couple of potential institutions already indicating interest.
Comparative Advantage
“We are building a platform, and not just a product.”
The current competitors for the solution include Integrated Solution and Ampersand Solution who are in the business of providing electronic medical records’ solution. Talk of comparative advantage, the electronic medical records solution is just a component of what APMIS offers.
“We currently have a strong ecosystem partnership in place with the likes of Microsoft, Intel, Dell among others to help drive the platform. We are big about partnership and collaborations.”
The company, which was recently appointed as the technology partner of the Nigerian Medical Association, boasts of an extensive relationship in the industry with in-depth knowledge and experience of the industry.
The license for the solution is free, however it adopts a subscription-based model towards support and implementation. The solution is already being implemented at the University College Hospital, Ibadan.
The company is building a platform where healthcare providers get their data automated, where clients also engage, think of what Finacle in addition to Interswitch are to the financial sector.
Challenges
The major setback for the industry according to the Dania is infrastructure funding on the part of the hospitals and healthcare delivery organizations. On the part of APMIS, the identified challenges include Application development, marketing and the threat of the “poorer alternative”.
The future
“Our goal is to build partnership across the continent.”
Though, currently have all its clients in Nigeria, APMIS is looking forward to becoming the platform for healthcare interaction across Africa and other tropical countries. The focus is on building a solid foundation as the company believes in building a solid root and not just a fancy solution.
Part of the short term goals of the platform is to host medical records of about 9 million patient while also serving all 54 tertiary hospitals in the country and another 1500 hospitals in the country.
On the basis of disrupting eHealth delivery on the continent, the company believes there are too many basic problems that need scalable solutions. So disruption of the industry shouldn’t be a focus at the moment, as less than a percent of the healthcare organisations make use of technology for service delivery.
“Disruption should be providing a scalable deployment of any solution.”
The founder
The founder, Dania, a medical doctor has work with the Nigerian largest teaching hospital, the University College Hospital, Ibadan as health informatics consultants running both telemedicine and mHealth projects for the past six years and has been looking into how to deliver technology to the healthcare delivery sector for over a thirteen years.
Feature image credit: Smart Card Alliance
