AID:Tech - healthcare and digital identity on the blockchain

AID:Tech's blockchain solution offers end-users with digital identity, direct and traceable distribution of healthcare and transparency for partners.

Whilst healthcare delivery in sub-saharan Africa is seeing impressive leaps, there continues to be entrenched challenges including the lack of legal identity therefore difficulties faced by users when accessing suitable care, the difficulty in reaching those who are less connected and the continuously growing demand for demonstrable impact and value for money using data.

AID:Tech’s data logistics solutions leverage Blockchain technology and digital identity to enable the delivery of digital entitlements including welfare, remittances, healthcare, aid and peer-to-peer donations.

In Tanzania, we are working with PharmAccess Foundation, an organisation dedicated in harnessing digital technology to improve access to healthcare. In this particular pilot, launched in April 2018, we are focusing on the distribution of pregnancy care for women to improve maternal and neonatal health. As well as improving access, the solution also intends to establish the efficacy of blockchain to deliver transparency and traceability into the resource distribution process to allow PharmAccess and programme stakeholders to better understand expenditure, identify room for improvement and demonstrate value for money and impact as basis for future scalability.

As a technology solution provider, AID:Tech has provided PharmAccess with a dedicated blockchain platform, which enable PharmAccess’s digital service and local healthcare delivery teams on the ground to provision intended recipients with digital identity in the form of QR code printed cards. Entitlements of regular clinic visits, treatment and supplements are directly digitally delivered to these unique digital identities.

Pregnant women are then able to take their ID cards and obtain the services they are entitled to (eg. folic acid supplements) at their local clinics. At each visit, the person’s ID is scanned and medical data is permanently documented on the blockchain. By incorporating smart contract technology, the platform also provides additional services such as reminders for end-users as well as notifications of missed visits for practitioners.

The solution provides a range of benefits to different actors. Firstly, intended recipients; pregnant women, are given an identity profile that they call their own, with which they can access healthcare services with. Each profile is a unique identity paired with the person’s information, including profile picture, to manage data ownership and cases of loss and misplacement.

From the perspective of PharmAccess, the platform serves as a system on which they find clear records of programme recipients. Using this information, they can reliably expand their programme to those previously excluded. On the platform, transparency and traceability over transactional data of how resources are being distributed and consumed allow clear reconciliation - matching records of clinic distributing with records of end-users consuming; highlighting any anomaly and thus inefficiencies in the distribution process.

In the long term, as data accumulates, the platform will offer the capacity to generate insights such as pattern of supply and demand based on transactional data. For instance, it will be possible for practitioners to note irregular rate of consumption of indicative medications, such as antibiotics, and action proactive programmes as preventative measures.

Integral to AID:Tech’s solution is blockchain technology - a critical component underpinning transparency and traceability into processes of distributing entitlements. As well as healthcare, AID:Tech’s solution is available for the distribution of aid, welfare, remittance and p2p donations - reflecting the demand for data-backed transparency and efficiency in the humanitarian, development and public sectors. Particularly unique to AID:Tech’s solution is the use of digital identity on the blockchain. By assigning one for each end-user, it becomes possible for our clients to track distribution of resources down to an individual level, as part of a close loop system.

Technology is what makes AID:Tech’s solutions possible, spanning from digital, mobile to innovative technologies including blockchain and artificial intelligence. Digital technology, blockchain in particular, we argue is the key to transforming identification systems available to the world’s underserved and excluded. Without cutting-edge technology, it would not be feasible to provide our client partners with the capacity to offer unique identity profiles en-masss, nor would it be possible to deliver entitlements and address issues around efficiency and transparency.

We expect to complete the current pilot in the next 2 months. Progress made thus far suggests that the end of the pilot will signal the scaling of the existing solution across wider geographies and more end-users. The scaling process will involve ongoing refinements and development upgrades. At the end of the first 12 months, we expect the solution to span areas in Tanzania where PharmAccess is present. Additionally we also expect to see the solution expand further into Tanzanian geographies not yet covered by PharmAccess and to other countries they do cover, which include Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria.

In the next three to five years, we envision the AID:Tech solution to span the continents of Africa and Asia, where we work with healthcare experts to make services available to individuals in need. Beyond healthcare, we expect AID:Tech to be a recognised leader in the industry, where blockchain and innovative technologies are leveraged for social impact in the humanitarian, development and public sectors. The AID:Tech platform is built with scalability in mind - through the use of permissioned blockchain technology, where our client partners can seamlessly provision digital identity to more users and across more geographies.

By working with client partners, such as PharmAccess Foundation, which are organisations expert in their field and dedicated to transforming people’s lives, AID:Tech’s solutions can effectively gain growth through their network of users and beneficiaries. In the context of healthcare, AID:Tech’s solutions will expand in presence by being made available via local clinics and healthcare facilities to reach more end-users. Communities will be able to access the AID:Tech solution as part of their healthcare service, supported and made possible by experts on the ground dedicated to widening access and inclusion.

Since April, the AID:Tech solution is currently serving approximately 100 end-users, via one client partner, PharmAccess Foundation. End-users are pregnant women, who are targeted beneficiaries by the foundation, as part of a programme to address maternal and neonatal healthcare in Tanzania. Since provisioned with digital identity, these women have gained regular access to healthcare services as part of a monitoring process to ensure the quality of health, whilst the first baby on the blockchain will soon be borne, where their digital identity will be directly tethered to their mother’s to ensure the earliest access to necessary services in life.

We expect to be serving approx. 50,000 end-users in 12 months’ time and 2 million in three years. AID:Tech’s healthcare solution will extend beyond access to maternal and neonatal healthcare but also to make everyday healthcare services available to all those in need. We will do so by continuing ongoing partnerships with health service providers and building new ones, for instance, with local, public authorities. The availability of the AID:Tech solution signifies reliable and accessible healthcare for end-users whilst sustainable and efficient system of management for our client partners.

The AID:Tech technical team is led by CTO and Chief Data Scientist, Alejandro (Sasha) Vicente Grabovetsky, COO, Niall Dennehy and Nicola Paoli, our Lead Blockchain Developer. Their expertise has made the AID:Tech solution and one of the best in the industry - one that is already deployed and serving users. AID:Tech’s CEO, Joseph Thompson, is a thought leader in the field, having been recognised by the UN as the first ever Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Pioneer for blockchain technology.

AID:Tech offers our platform via a SaaS based model. A monthly fee is incurred and borne by our client partners per digital identity (approx US$1) per user, as well as a percentage transaction fee based on the type and volume of transactions recorded on the blockchain.

The core AID:Tech platform is readily available to prospective client partners for implementation. Further costs are involved if the platform requires dedicated customisation. Since 2015, AID:Tech has implemented pilots with the Irish Red Cross, Saint Vincent de Paul, PharmAccess and UNDP Serbia - based on relationships we build upon these pilots, AID:Tech is expecting to evolve from project-based revenue to recurring revenue as programmes are proven and scaled.

Across the use cases for which AID:Tech has been developing and working with, each poses huge market opportunity. For instance, the global market size for healthcare delivery will reach US$1 trillion by 2050 and the global remittance market is worth US$600 billion and is ripe for disruption, especially for second and third world country users, where transaction fee is still unproportionately high (up to 24%).

Knowing that MIT Solve is an initiative that brings together problem solvers is the key reason we are applying. The work that AID:Tech often touches upon uncharted grounds; in the context of introducing innovation and disruptive forces in the humanitarian, development and public sectors which have lagged behind other sectors for many decades. We are keen to meet with those who are like-minded in mission and with the expertise to support and further AID:Tech’s work in the most socially impactful way.

Currently the most prominent barriers include bringing onboard more individuals to join the team who embody the social mission and expertise that align with what AID:Tech is doing. Additionally, we are keen to continuously develop our methods around scaling both our solution technologically and socially - how it can be implemented to always best meet the needs of both end-users and our client partners. We believe that Solve, as part of MIT, can provide channels to domain experts and thought leaders who can help support our cause.