Last week saw a team from the University of Nairobi get awarded 120,000 Dollars (about KSh10.8 Million) for their innovation of a health solution card that is aimed at providing better health services for struggling communities across Kenya.
The health solution is a bar-coded Vaccination and Child wellness card, used to track vaccinations and as a form of incentive and motivation to stay healthy reward mothers with discounts on farm products. The app is aimed are reducing child deaths.
First piloted in North Western Kenya, the vaccination Card that automatically updates itself once a child is registered at birth and every time a child or mother is vaccinated, will be used to help improve the lives of people in various households where there is little healthcare.
Away from Nairobi University’s card solution and off to Coptic Hospital, where there is a new mobile and web application that is set to link Kenyans so they can access material and information that is geared to enhance their health.
Dubbed iAfya Health Information, the solution has been introduced to aid health professionals educated their patients on how to improve their health by sharing information and encouraging them to adopt better lifestyles.
How it Works
iAfya Health Information is designed to be used as a communication platform between a patient and a health expert. A patient shares their experience with the health expert or asks questions, and the health professional responds with required answers and additional comments for better understanding by the patient.
Through a pilot project to test usability and deliverability of the application, owners of the iAfya Health Information say the app helped at least 200 mothers through their pregnancies in a period of three months.
The initiative is a project provided for by a company, Avallain Limited, that seeks to help patients get more information about their illnesses and how they can control it in a more effective and real-time manner as it can be done from the comfort of the home, eliminating the need to travel.
Newly introduced to cater for Coptic Hospital clinics for maternal and child birth, the app is planned for expansions to other clinics as well, including Chronic diseases clinic and the tuberculosis clinics where Avallain Limited will provide health talks on a weekly basis and training on how to use mobile phones to access health information.
The mobile app, available for download on the website iAfya.org, is expected to help contribute in reduction of the many cases of emergencies that can be easily prevented if the patient had been well informed.
The new initiative also provides for a text messaging service and an email service, where alerts will be sent to the user on a weekly subscription basis after some basic information is provided on the health information that a user requires.
