M'Care Health

With a global acute shortage of healthcare professional at 100 times less the ideal, mitigating infectious disease outbreaks in communities with no doctors where early detection, diagnosis, treatment and coordinated response is essential, is impossible. M'Care addresses this using artificial intelligence and mobile connectivity to empower registered community health extension workers to report early warning signs of a disease on M'Care mobile platform, get guidance on how to manage diseases, refer patients while automatically alerting central health authorities to mitigate a potential outbreak. M'Care also measures availability of essential medicines in communities, matches shortages with pre-verified pharmacies and facilitates supplies to ensure patients are treated. 

M'Care has effectively supported 81 remote communities till date, with an estimated population of 162,000 persons with 856,489 request addressed. If scaled globally, M'Care can address the needs of 3.3 billion people living in communities with no access to a doctor. 

Globally, there are 57,000 people to one doctor. This is almost 100 times less than the stipulated required 600 people to one doctor stipulated by the World Health Organization. This acute shortage of healthcare professionals means 3.3 Billion people in communities with no doctors are disproportionately at risk of health epidemics with no access to modern healthcare. Furthermore, detection and mitigation of outbreaks is late and reactive due to acute shortage in human health resources. M'Care addresses this problem by using artificial intelligence and mobile connectivity to predict, diagnose, treat, refer index cases as well as alert health authorities to mitigate the spread of the disease.

M'Care is an artificial intelligence solution functioning as a decision support for community health workers: guides them on outbreak preparedness, diagnoses, treatment or case management and referral while coordinating response to mitigate an epidemic with local health authorities. Using the most advanced analytics and machine learning tools to predict outbreaks and prescribe pro-active actions respectively based on reinforcing expert system.

Also, M'Care uses mobile connectivity as the most accessible and acceptable delivery channel, for remote community health workers with little or no access to the internet and limited digital literacy. 

Therefore, community health workers can easily report diseases or potential outbreaks on M'Care's mobile platform, access guidance on management, identify supply chain options for essential medicines and automatically alert their local authorities to pro-actively prepare to mitigate a potential epidemic.

M'Care's target population include communities with no doctors, remote communities cut off from modern health systems and clusters of economically disadvantaged people who have no health insurance and the cost of accessing health care is prohibitive to them. M'Care works with these communities' extension health workers to provide primary health services, resilience against infection diseases and communication channels to access health authorities and supply of essential medicines when needed to address a potential epidemic. 

M'Care's was developed after eight months of ethnographic research in these communities which helped understand lifestyle, their health seeking behavior, risk factors that triggers an epidemic and natural response of the community without a formal health care system. Concurrently, M'Care engaged primary health authorities to understand objectives, regulations and scope of adaptive practices acceptable. Today, M'Care continue to engage community health extension workers, the communities she serves and health care stakeholders to continually evolve her solution to address health needs, emergent diseases and responsive protocols to prevent epidemics and strengthen health responsiveness in her communities.

From Tuberculosis to HIV, M'Care has mitigated potential epidemics from 856,489 requests in two years. M'Care has created a virtual health system for remote low literacy communities to access healthcare equitably.

Today, health security risks are exacerbated by climate change and globalization leaving us isolated communities vulnerable to epidemics and pandemics. Climate change puts isolated communities at risk of novel zoonotic diseases and environmental related epidemics while globalization cuts isolated communities from critical health services due to acute shortage of doctors; re-distributing health systems and drug supply chain for access essential medicines to urban areas disproportionately. 

M'Care uses artificial intelligence and mobile connectivity to track potential  epidemics, analyzing expert data that informs decision making, and providing solutions that guides semi-literate health extension workers to proactively mitigate epidemics in these communities.

Solutions addressing the gap in healthcare delivery and resilience of isolated communities focus on either maternal and child health, proactive vaccination and administrative data transfer for community health extension workers. These solutions like Medic Mobile and Care@Hand effectively demonstrate the use of offline data management solutions to report daily work flows for communities isolated by distance to the central health authorities. Yet, these solutions fail to address the core needs of the population for proactive responsiveness to outbreaks and epidemics including effective clinical care. Since the community health workers are semi-literate and resident in these communities, word spreads around quickly about their ineffectiveness in addressing outbreaks and diseases and the population lose faith in them despite being their only contact point to the formal healthcare system.  

This is why M'Care addresses the need for effective clinical responsiveness for emerging diseases, including coordinated epidemic control, access to essential medicines and case management in easy to understand language via a decision support tool available on the mobile phone of community health extension workers. This re-establishes trust and confidence in the health system and ensures proactive reporting from community members to address outbreaks early and quickly.

M'Care is able to do this at scale using most advanced artificial intelligent solutions for expert data analytics in identifying, predicting and addressing infectious diseases that could lead to epidemics.

M'Care uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyse expert systems on infectious disease prediction, management and control and use mobile connectivity to relay information to registered community health extension workers and health authorities. M'Care automatically identifies potential disease outbreaks from reported information provided by community extension health workers and predicts likely spread based on the community's location and demographics. M'Care then relies on reinforced learning from expert systems to guide the community extension health workers on early proactive measures to take immediately while relaying the analyzed data based on potential priority, severity and scale to the health authorities to follow up with a coordinated response. Essential medicines required to address the potential epidemic are presented to the community health extension worker to check for availability and request for supply options where shortages exist.

A mix of IVRs, SMS and USSD are mobile channels for engaging on the M'Care mobile platform.

M'Care has been deployed in 81 communities and used by 81 community health extension workers in the past two years with 856,489 requests addressed in Nigeria in partnership with the Community Health Extension Workers School in Ogun State and endorsed by the National e-Health Regulatory body in Nigeria. M'Care has been recognized is a verified innovation on many the Global Innovation Exchange (https://www.globalinnovationexchange.org/innovation/m-care-health) and recognized by European Commission, TechTour, YGAP Australia, USAID Mandela Washington Fellowship with supported by Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria, Tony Elumelu Foundation and United Nations/GSMA/ITU  Equals in Technology partnership Geneva, Switzerland.

M'CARE THEORY OF CHANGE:

ACTIVITIES

M'Care core activities includes clinical information collection, virtual guidance of community health extension health workers on on reporting, management and referral of diseases and outbreaks, providing supply chain options for essential medicines, alerting health authorities on potential outbreaks identified for early mitigation. 

OUTPUT

Identification and tracking of index cases, effective clinical and emergency management of infectious diseases, coordinated mitigation of epidemics with health authorities, access to essential medicines to address clinical case management and early treatment of identified cases.

OUTCOME

Pro-actively slow infectious disease to initial contacts of index cases, early isolation and timely responses to prevent an epidemic, early community awareness and dissemination of preventive measures to limit spread of infectious disease and survival of identified cases.

IMPACT

Reduced incidence of community wide epidemics, prevent rural-urban zoonotic epidemic spread, reduced mortality and increased survival outcomes of isolated communities with no formal health system, reduced Government spending on epidemic and pandemic control, reduced human health expenditure and increased health system resilience, an easy to scale  citizen led, resilient health system.

Currently M'Care serves approximately 162,000 persons

In the next one year we plan to scale to 1 million.

In the next 5 years we plan to scale to 23 million.

In the next year, we are partnering with 5 Nigerian states governments with estimated rural population of 38 million and in discussion with a health management organization in Democratic republic of Congo to license our technology. Conservative estimates of our capacity and currently available resources mean we can achieve at least a reach of one million persons in the next year. In the next five years, we intend to scale up our capacity and resources to reach at least 23 million persons within our target countries. 

Our overall goal is to prevent zoonotic epidemics from rural isolated communities and extend clinical care through community health extension workers where doctors are not available.

FINANCIAL NEEDS: $1,500,000 is required to scale operational resources and capabilities to reach 1 million users in the next year. 

TECHNICAL: Adaptation of expert systems to new countries standard of care if different from the current operating country (Nigeria) will lead to a steep deployment curve within the next year and in the next five years for new markets.

LEGAL: Regulatory barriers in countries may requires finding the right partners to license technology, government regulation on mobile and artificial intelligent health solutions may also limit adoption.

CULTURAL: Ethnic groups sensitivity to human versus virtual care will impact community acceptance and adoption as a people-led reporting tool for epidemic control through their community health workers will limit breathe and speed of scale in the next year within Northern Nigeria. The need to translate to Hausa  (Nigeria) and French Language (Democratic Republic of Congo), engage community leaders to endorse solutions and rate limiting step of proving effectiveness to the population in the early deployment days will limit the speed and breath of scale in the next one year. 

MARKET ACCESS BARRIER: Limited central health authorities infrastructure and lack of a robust community health extension workers network to reach isolated communities will limit market access to target population. The perception of the cost of care and the willingness to pay by for services by local users and health authorities might limit licensing potential to new countries in the next five years.

FINANCIAL NEEDS: Currently have access to $1 million in equity funding being pursued and hope to match the rest with a mix of grant and generated revenue.

TECHNICAL: Engaging countries with similar health systems and ensuring early on discussion in necessary adaptation for example discussion with Democratic Republic of Congo partners has been on-going for two years to ensure co-created adaptive response.

LEGAL: We proactively engage regulatory authorities prior to deployment, understand their needs and concerns, ensure partners considered have the right regulatory permit and work with only registered and government recognized community health extension workers networks. 

CULTURAL: Simulate early ethnographic research in culturally different communities, identify language, channel, chain of influence, social capital requirements and stakeholders to be engaged early including security risks that may be peculiar in conflict prone regions so as to create a robust response. In Nigeria, 3 of the new States we will be launching in the next year are in the North where literacy is even lower compared to the south and local language translation, voice prompts from community leaders and social capital is necessary. We partnered with a local grass-root organization to address these challenge early. 

MARKET ACCESS BARRIER: In communities where community health extension workers networks do not reach enough isolated communities, we work with government and pre-approved non-governmental organization to certify new community health extension workers in the region, one year prior to launch. We proactively build networks across target market, plan ahead and strengthen technical capabilities to central health authorities.

Full time Staff= 30

Part time Staff= 10

M'Care is led by experienced and resourceful team, supported by an advisory board and governed by a board of directors. 

M'Care's Executives include: 

Opeoluwa Ashimi, is a Digital Health Specialist, a Pharmacist and former community health extension worker with an MBA (UK), a United Nations Equals Fellows and USAID  Mandela Washington fellow. She has 13 years of experience working in multi-discipline multi-stakeholder health organizations with the public and private sector hence best able to balance socially acceptable yet financially sustainable enterprise development system. She is an Acumen scholar versed in Systems Practice, Adaptive Leadership and Impact assessment. She is M'Care's CEO.

Arindam Ghosh PhD is a data scientist with over 14 years experience in health intelligent systems research, Machine Learning and mobile Telecoms. He is M'Care's CTO. 

Dr Olagoke Ewedairo (M.D.) leads M'Care's Medical Assurance. He is a consultant physician with a Master in Public Health (Harvard) and over 15 years experience managing and mitigating infectious diseases across multiple organizations.

Hasna Ouaaoub MBA is a Trilingual (English, French, Arabic) multimedia expert with over 12 years of user experience and interface (UX/UI) and marketing roles across 3 continents. Hasna leads M'Care UX/UI, patient experience, translation science and channel partnerships.

Partnerships include

STARTIFY7 Digital Health Team University of Sheffield, United Kingdom for product research and development and University of Bradford, United Kingdom partnership for sustainable business model development.

Microsoft Engineering partnership

Ogun State Ministry of Health for access to registered community health extension workers and liaising on epidemic control in the state's community.  

M'Care's key beneficiaries include isolated communities with no doctors and the central health authorities. M'Care's value proposition is timely and responsive care that stems epidemics that is financially sustainable for low income communities and resource strained health authorities. Our ability to balance effectiveness and efficiency is our unique competitive advantage. 

M'Care addresses genuine tangible health concerns regarding infectious diseases using a community led approach but provides the most advanced technology solutions to address these needs in an acceptable manner. We engage our customers through already existing channels of community health extension workers and mobile platforms hence limiting the need for a steep learning curve for adoption. Our cost structure and revenue model is accommodates population living on less than $2 a day.

Since we have an embedded business model, we have a mixed revenue model: 

B2C= communities accessing care pay for our service

B2B= governments' central health authorities pay for our service.

B2B2C= Licensing agreements through third party organization to provide our service in target communities.

We also receive impact-based and Technology grants: Microsoft, Standard Chartered Bank, Tony Elumelu Foundation, EU Startify7, USAID Mandela Washington Fellowship Grants are examples of grants accessed based on impact.

Finally, we are open to impact investment and in negotiation for one. By proving a sustainable revenue model, we have been able to attract interest from angel and impact investors to allow us scale our reach and impact.

Solve can help us meet our financial needs by giving us visibility before interested impact investors and donors. Solve also gives on the opportunity to further develop the adaptability of our AI expert system to different technical and language requirements as we scale beyond our current market. Finally, Solve gives us access to a broad network that is resourceful for navigating market access barriers as we grow.

PRODUCT/SERVICE DISTRIBUTION: We are interested in the right partnerships that will help scale our solution across the world to reach the 3.3 Billion currently cut off from formal health systems. 

FUNDING AND REVENUE MODEL: We are raising investment to reach our goals and explore more revenue opportunities by leveraging our mobile health platform to meet other health stakeholders' needs. 

MARKETING, MEDIA AND EXPOSURE: M'Care is a relatively young company that will benefit from MIT and Solver community's media, marketing and exposure opportunities to spread the word and ease new market entry. 

MIT Faculty

Health Management Organizations

National, State and Provincial Health Authorities

Telecoms and Mobile Network Operators.

M'Care's mission addresses prediction, prevention and management of infectious diseases in neglected communities cut off the public health system due to urban migration of health resources. We are dedicated to using the most advanced, yet acceptable technology to bridge the health equity gap and build a more resilient health system against epidemics and pandemics. We do this by strengthening frontline community health extension workers in remote communities; creating a linkage to the central health authority on our mobile platform and ensuring easy access to the essential medicines required to manage and arrest infectious diseases before they spread. Our robust AI-powered expert system, reinforced by machine learning is available in simple language and translated to local languages.

Using artificial intelligence and mobile connectivity to track potential epidemics, analyzing expert data that informs decision making, and providing solutions that guides semi-literate health extension workers to proactively mitigate epidemics in these communities, M'Care elevates community health extension workers' capabilities to protect themselves and their communities in a dignified and coordinated manner. 

The Elevate Prize will help us meet our financial needs to empower 500 more community health extension workers serving 1 million people in remote communities so they can render their service with dignity and save lives.

M'Care uses artificial intelligence and mobile connectivity to track potential epidemics, analyzing expert data that informs decision making, and providing solutions that guides semi-literate health extension workers to proactively mitigate epidemics in these communities. 

The AI for Humanity Prize will help us adapt our artificial intelligence solution to the local regulations and health system of our target country (Democratic republic of Congo) in the coming year. This will also set the precedence to reach 8 more french speaking African countries. Also, the prize will help us continue to serve low income communities living on less than $2 a day where adaptation to low literacy channels is essential to effectively deploy and scale our solution, saving more lives. Our goal is to reach 1 million users in the next year and this AI for Humanity prize will help us reach that goal.

98% of community health extension workers are female. They are at the frontline of providing essential healthcare services in communities with no doctors including vaccination, maternal and child health, hygiene education and proactive dissemination of information to prevent epidemics. M'Care empowers these female community health extension workers with decision support that mitigates potential epidemics, analyzing expert data to identify, track, isolate and manage infectious diseases and mitigate epidemics through a coordinated response with central health authorities. Hence, M'Care not only ensures these female community health workers have the right tools to deliver their services effectively, it ensures protective measures are taken to protect the female health workers and provides a direct platform with the central health authorities so their voices are heard in decision making that impact their work and communities. 

M'Care's mission addresses prediction, prevention and management of infectious diseases in neglected communities cut off the public health system due to urban migration of health resources. We are dedicated to using the most advanced, yet acceptable technology to bridge the health equity gap and build a more resilient health system against epidemics and pandemics. We do this by strengthening frontline community health extension workers in remote communities; creating a linkage to the central health authority on our mobile platform and ensuring easy access to the essential medicines required to manage and arrest infectious diseases before they spread. Our robust AI-powered expert system, reinforced by machine learning is available in simple language and translated to local languages.

Using artificial intelligence and mobile connectivity to track potential epidemics, analyzing expert data that informs decision making, and providing solutions that guides semi-literate health extension workers to proactively mitigate epidemics in these communities, M'Care elevates community health extension workers' capabilities to protect themselves and their communities in a dignified and coordinated manner. 

We don't relent here. M'Care is focused on providing equitable access to a responsive healthcare system for the economically disadvantaged living on less than $2 a day. For the 162,000 people who we have addressed 

856,489 health requests till date, M'Care has been the bedrock of health access that saved them from a potential epidemic that could have claimed lives. Reaching the poor and neglected is not a preference but a necessity because zoonotic diseases (from animals to humans) can easily spread to urban areas and other parts of the world as we have seen with COVID-19. It is hence a public health priority and our collective responsibility to ensure everyone; not urban or insured residents only, is protected from a potential pandemic because until everyone is protected, no one is protected. M'Care is a response to the people's need. 

M'Care is a scalable solution using artificial intelligence and mobile connectivity to track potential epidemics, analyzing expert data that informs decision making, and providing solutions that guides semi-literate health extension workers to proactively mitigate epidemics in these communities. 

With a sustainable model, M'Care is adapting our artificial intelligence solution to the local regulations, language and health system of French speaking countries in the coming year and set to reach 1 million users having successfully processed 856,489 health requests till date. We have potential license partners and successfully proven our model. We welcome investment interests in M'Care as we raise our first round of external capital.