HFX

We all know how important health is for everyone however in my community, my country and other places in the world there is not enough local hospitals for the population. The physicians who are well-suited to assist you to your disease are not necessarily located in the hospital of your area, they might be located in another city or even another country. My mother faced such a situation, she had a stomach related problem, she went to the local health Center in the community, the Generalist Physician provided her with medications which did not solve the problem. Things was getting worse at a point I was very worry because I love my Mom so much. Fortunately, a physician who was born in the community came to see his family and for some reason, he was well-suited to assist my Mom's with her disease. After diagnostics, he provided her with required medications and she could reestablish. So, I wonder, how to make it so that specialist anywhere in the world can collaborate to local physicians and nurses in order to create a more equitable health system for everyone, everywhere? How physicians located anywhere, in any hospitals can assist physicians and patients in any other part of the world? 

HFX stands for Health For All. This solution uses machine learning algorithm to connect patients, local hospitals, health centers, laboratories with specialists anywhere in the world for assistance. 

Here is how it works: 

Two situations are considered: 

1) If there is no emergency:  Patients tell their problem to our piece of software on their smartphone. They choose in which part of their body they are sick. The system asks them some additional questions. Based on their answers, using "Google Cloud Firestore" complex queries and machine learning algorithms (decision tree), the system gets them in touch with a well-suited health specialist located anywhere in the world to assist them. After a first online meeting, the specialist adds a clinic impression to the patient's case on the platform and ask them to do a physical consultation on one of our affiliated local hospitals or health centers.

As the local hospitals or health centers have a profile on our system indicating what kind of services they offer, the platform uses this information to indicate patients in which hospital or health center to go.

Results of consultation are uploaded to the patient case on the platform. The specialist is notified of the uploading and can access the related data. A second meeting is made with the patient (on any of available online meeting platform like Google meet, Zoom, Microsoft Team, etc.). The physician or Nurse who has made the consultation might also be in the online meeting. From there, the health specialist might ask the patient according to the need to make a physical test in an affiliated local laboratory. The system will again indicate the patient the nearest laboratory which performs the required test. The results of the test are uploaded on the platform so the specialist, assisting the patient, can access them. Based on the diagnostic, the health specialist will write an ordinance for the patient. There are nurses available on the platform to assist patient on taking medications (For example to take those medications on time and so that the patient feels being in contact not with a software but with real people). The specialist might invite one or several other specialists on the patient case if there is need for that. The system also allows the specialist physician to transfer the case to another specialist he thinks is better-suited to assist with the situation. 

The process goes on until the case is closed.

2) If there is emergency: A quick physical intervention might be necessary, so in this scenario, the system first refers the patient to one of the local affiliated hospitals or health centers and only then associate a specialist to  his/her case. In that case, the specialist might assist local physician on taking care of the patient. The local physician will make physical follow up, communicating in real-time with online specialist physician in order to quickly provide a possible solution to the patient. 

First of all, this solution will be useful to people in the community I grew up. My Mom and My Dad living in this community are the ones who inspired me to try to find a solution to that problem. They were both sick, at a first time struggling to find a solution and fortunately when meeting a well-suited specialist for their case, they were able to find a solution their disease. They are not the only one, the solution will be useful to people in my community, in the country and a lot of other places in the world where there is the same problem. Health is very important for everyone, so their should be an equitable health systems available for everyone, everywhere.  

In my community, there is no hospital, their is only health centers. People should run about 30 minutes to 1h by car in order to find a hospital. So, the first way the solution will help them is they will still be able to make necessary physical consultations in local health centers while the local physician assisting them will be in touched with a remote health specialist adapted to their disease. 

The solution will hugely improve people's live in Haiti because the current situation in term of health in the country is that there is not enough hospitals. The existing ones don't provide enough services.  Some people having the means, go to take care abroad but most of the population don't have this privilege. Building a lot of new hospitals with all the related services and health specialists coming physically everyday to the office requires a huge budget. Our solution is thus an alternative allowing to provide access to an equitable health system for everyone everywhere with a far lower-cost approach. 

The way we will do that is simple -  We are partnering with existing local hospitals, health centers and  which are equipped with necessary basic instruments to provide physical consultations while working together with well-suited remote health specialists to provide solutions to local patients. 

In the future, we will also build at low-cost new hospitals, health centers and medical examination as per our vision of providing a more equitable health system for everyone everywhere. 

Local health institutions will have basic equipments operated by local health  The results of the examination will be sent through the mobile platform to the most relevant health specialists around the world providing assistance.  

This solution will be scaled in the future to other countries facing  the same kind of health issues.    

The design and implementation of our solution involves the participation of different stakeholders. Through my journey, I find the chance to connect to a huge network of people with different backgrounds (people in my community, students at university, entrepreneurs, Managers, CEOs, Lawyer, Nurses, Doctors, etc.) So, when I have a new project, I have the opportunity to get feedback from a lot of different people with different background. 

I fact, the very first pilot project, I will start implementing it in the community I grew up. In this community, I am very trustworthy, I am an inspiration for the young people. The community is proud of me. I have a story of success. specifically in the technology area, I've already made a huge difference where I use the technology to solve real life problems. I've already start doing that with other real life projects where people know that I am the initiator of. So, my team has the advantage where people trust us.

After an interview by a journalist related to a FinTech application I've developed and won a competition with organized by a commercial bank Foundation, he made a post about me on social media namely facebook, I could see how proud people in my community were, their comments saying "congratulations, keep it up, we already knew that you would make great things, your profile showed this since your childhood, we are looking forward to your future project, the country needs people like you who can make a difference". Now, beside the trust that the community where I grew up has on me, based on my experience on solving real life problems, I've started by talking to my mother first about the idea of making a system that would help her to get in touch with the best-suited health specialist that could help here to find a solution to her stomach related problem. I told the same to my father. In fact, I am really desperate to solve the problem because my mother and father faced it and a lot of other people in the community and the country even the world are facing the same problem of lack of access to an equitable health system. I've already imply different stakeholders (patient, Physician, Nurses) since from the design of the solution so that it reflects their reality. As I keep thinking about how I could solve this problem, I will make it so that I talk to more people as possible of my target population to take ideas from them and make sure the solution is well shaped according to their needs. We use an agile approach where we try to understand the problem, define a basic concept, now we have a prototype and are iterating over the solution according to people's feedback in other to offer them a good experience using our mobile platform.

 Not only I am trustworthy on the community I grew up, I am also trustworthy on the capital of the country. In fact, because there is no university in the community I grew up, thanks to a scholarship I've received from an organization called "Haitian Education and Leadership Program" , I came to the capital to study computer science with a minor in entrepreneurship and business management". This scholarship program receives excellent people from several different communities (departments) of the country. So, it was an opportunity for me to meet a lot of different excellent people of my country which enlarges my network. I remain connected to those people via this program as an alumni. At my university also, I've been able to write a story of academic success, because of that people and the manager of the university trust me. In 2017, At the 3rd year at this university, a bank foundation of my country organized a FINTECH competition (the one I've mentioned above), at this time I could only develop academic computer programs. I was desperate to build a real life application software. 

So, I saw the competition as an opportunity to build a real life application solution. I build a team and took part to it. This competition provides us with training about solving real life problems using technology and innovation. My team was among one of the 3 winners of the competition and the app we've developed as part of this competition is now released really on the market with more than 5 000 downloads on the Play store and more than 1500 downloads on Apple Store. At this competition, I could be able to increase my network with the other team members of the competition and also the organizer members. 

In 2018, after being qualified, my team represented the university at the HULT PRIZE Regional Final competition at Boston, USA. This competition is the world's largest student competition challenging them to solve a pressing social issue by creating for profit business model. From there, I met students of several different countries representing their university at the same competition. I remained connected to some of them. So, in the future, this might be an opportunity for me when it comes to scale HealthForX in new countries. I can get insights from those students I remain in contact with.

 In 2019, my team ranked 2nd of a competition organized by the largest Co-working space at my country called Banj in partnership Google for Haiti, some Haitians working at Google making a community to see how Haitian can use Google products to bring local tech-based innovative solutions. 

This competition allows me again to enlarge my network. I become now a member of the co-working space, spending time there, I network to new people. The CEO of this co-working space even allowed me to have an opportunity of making a win-to-win partnership of my FINTECH startup with an established telecommunication corporate as part of a new mobile App they developed. 

In 2019, My team found the opportunity of being selected among the teams that entered a tech Incubator, which is a project by the Ministry of Finance in partnership with the central Bank of the country. From there I received trainings from national and international expert about startup using the platform "Strategyzer". And now, I am working at the Central Bank as Software Quality assurance Engineer. Being passionate about solving real life problems to contribute in making people experiencing a better life during their stay on earth, I spend a lot of time trying to study the life of other inventors, innovators who made great impact around the world to understand how they see the world , how they approach things. All those things give me a good basic understanding about solving real life problems. 

Now, combining the trust people have on me, the network I could build in term of strategic person that can facilitate me to make a necessary partnership, my experience and exceptional abitliy to build new concepts based on what are already there, I am the well-suited to this problem. 

We are applying to solve for several reasons: 

1) Financial reason: If selected to be a Solver team, the 10 000 USD we will receive will be useful. For now, I am the only mobile developer working on the prototype. This is why I can start developing the solution without expending any money. And because I use (Firebase powerful, scalable cloud-based back-end solution, and flutter as a multi-platform solution from Google, and based on my experience on developing and releasing mobile app on both play store and app store, I am able to develop the prototype on my own. So, my team can use the 10 000 USD to pay additional developers to work on the solution and we can pay also for cloud services with a part of it. 

2) Legal reason : Our solution will need access to legal resources to function. We need to consider all the legal aspect of the process and handle them. We've seen on the Solve website that Solver Teams have  access to relevant in-kind resources such as software licenses and legal services from Solve Member and partner organization.

3) Support to help our solution go to production and be scaled : We saw that solver teams have access to mentorship, coaching, and strategic advice from experts, as well as the Solve and MIT networks. This will help us to advance our solution.

4) Inspiration : As mention on the "become-a-solver" page at the Solve website, solver teams join a class of impressive peers acting as trusted as trusted support, inspiration and guidance, we will enjoy being part of that teams to get inspired and have enough energy and motivation to make the solution a reality. When being among like minded-people try to solve challenges of our time, we are more motivated. 

5) Trust of the brand: Even if our solution is efficient, people need to trust it. For that to happen, being showed in the media and at conferences will help a lot. People will trust a brand better when they see people are talking about it everywhere. Even people in my community, they will have a higher image of the solution if they see people are globally talking about it. They will have a kind of pride. 

The way our solution is innovative is it uses existing technology (Cloud Technology, Mobile application, machine learning algorithm (decision tree) , existing resources (local hospitals, local health centers, local medical examination laboratory)  to provide a new equitable health system for everyone everywhere.  

For the next year our impact goal for the next year is to make it so that the project is released to production in the community I grew up so that it can start being useful for people there. From there, we will start moving in other areas of the country and up to 5 years, we will start implementing the solution in other countries where there are the same problem.

We will base on how many people being healed or find care thanks to our system. We will also take care how many physicians are providing solution on it because this is a new way for them to make income while providing services to anyone anywhere in the world. There will also be translator on the platform to make translations during meetings between remote physicians (specialists) and patients , local physician in local hospitals , local medical examination laboratory in case those people does not speak the same language. Because the remote specialist who can solve your problem does not necessarily located in the same country as you and does not necessarily speak the same language. Also, there will be nurses on the system assisting patients to take medication on time, those nurses will be paid as well. Our solution will not only create a more equitable health system for everyone everywhere but it will also be profitable for the world economy and will measure all those impacts with indicators to share clearly how we are impacting people's live.

The way the solution will have an impact on the problem is because we've identified the problem. There are some hospitals but they physicians on them are not necessarily well-suited for people's deseases. It does not mean those physicians are not competent, they might randomly find a case where they are well suited to address this patient case but sometimes we might say most of the time, they are not necessarily the one who can address problems of patients in the community. Now, a way to solve this problem could have been creating more hospitals with different physicians with different specialty present physically in the office but this approach are far more costly/. So, we find a way to connect those existing local hospitals, health centers to specialists anywhere in the world who can assist them. This approach allows to address the problem at a far lower cost while using existing technology, ressources to provide a new solution to one the challenges of our time. 

The reason why our solution should solve this problem is because people are still suffering, we don't just want to make the solution for making it but we would like to improve people's life who can benefit of it. We all know how important health is for everyone, so everyone, everywhere should have access to an equitable health system.

The core technology that powers our solution is : machine learning algorithm (we use decision tree method) in order to know to which remote health specialist to match a patient based on the symptoms/signs they have. The matching ranking of the system will get improve with time as it is gathering more data. We also use Google cloud Firebase as our back-end. This allows to develop much faster and easier and allows our system to exchange data to all the stakeholders in real time. For the mobile apps , we use a technology from Google called Flutter. This technology allows us to develop both the android and iOS version of the app with the web admin portal from a same code base. Otherwise, it would be like we develop each app twice , one for android users and another for ios users. The flutter technology allows us gain in time , engineering effort expenses. 

Now, we are officially two people in the team. We are a male and a female, I am from a technology background and she is from a health background. We intent to keep this approach adding people diverse people to the leadership team. We want to have an inclusive team. We don't look at diversity. All that matter to us is how a member can be a good fit to advance the solution. After all, we don't intent to stay only in my community nor in Haiti, so we intent to integrate people of different countries in the leadership team as we are moving to other countries namely people in the country we are evolving and who are aligned to our vision because those people know better than us the reality of their area. This approach will help us to provide a solution adapted to the local area it's implemented. 

Our business model is clients will pay for our solution. We are building a hybrid profit and non-profit organization. So, we will also apply for grants. But the income will enter only on the business will be enough to sustain.

In fact, we use an approach where we use existing technology , ressources (local hospitals) even if we will also build news ones in the future to provide a low-cost equitable health system for everyone everywhere.

The plan is to opt for an hybrid type organization because the problem we are solving is sort of social as well. Using grants to develop our solution, in the future it will also be able to sustain with its own profit. 

So far, with no money, we get started with available resources (free Google cloud technology solution), my skill building mobile application both for android and iOS, now we are applying to solve to raise the 10 000 USD in order to pay new developers and pay cloud infrastructure as we have more customers. We will partner with hospitals and health centers already there at the beginning with zero cost (we add value to them). And in the future when the solution starts to work, we will start making profit to make it sustainable with its own fund.