Healthcare Supply Chain Initiative (HSCI)

Lack of integrated information systems and inefficiencies in supply chains is costing Africa and other developing regions up to 30 times more for delivery of essential supplies such as healthcare commodities. Fragmented, unpredictable and inefficient supply chains lead to poor planning, inefficient last mile delivery, wastage of resources, and low investment, in a continent where more than 800 million people rely on these supply chains to access healthcare products. In addition to these inefficiencies in supply networks, many healthcare actors lack the tools and knowledge needed to manage their supply chains. 

More than 3 billion people in developing countries around the world regions rely on healthcare supply chains that are either managed by a government, donor funded organization or a mission organization. This means that a handful of organizations are responsible for how a significant part of the population access these healthcare products and services. The effectiveness of these organizations to achieve efficient distribution of  essential products is significantly defined by the data utilization and sharing infrastructure they have in place, as well as the capacity of key actors to understand and utilize data in order to optimize operations and drive impact.  

Xetova provides technology and capacity building solutions that help African countries to use insights from their healthcare supply chains to drive impact through efficient procurement processes and predictive information on health interventions.  

Xetova’s mission is to leverage data science and information technology to make sure essential healthcare products are where and when they are needed without wastage of resources.   

Our Healthcare Supply Chain Transformation Initiative seeks to empower key decision makers in public and private healthcare organizations with the tools, knowledge, and exposure they need to succeed when leading their insights-driven organizational transformation. We deliver this through:

1) Knowledge-to-action capacity building programs: Focused on building the technical capacity of people leading, managing or influencing sourcing and delivery of essential healthcare products to leverage technology and data; and   

2) Insight mining and sharing programs: Focused on providing tools for real-time insight mining and secure insight sharing among key healthcare ecosystem actors. Our goal is to provide these actors with tools that can be used to shorten the learning curve, reduce cost of data utilization and enhance cross-agency collaboration.   

Existing data transformation methods in Africa include business intelligence tools such as Microsoft Power BI and IBM Watson, most of which are developed by large technology corporations for more developed markets. The advantage of Xetova is that our AI-powered solutions are tailored to the African context and can integrate with the majority of existing ICT enterprise software. We take the time to learn and understand our clients' contexts, and we are flexible enough to walk the journey with them. Our user experience journey is simple, making it easy to onboard employees, partners and customers, and for them to use our solutions. We provide a test environment for clients to learn, build, and test our solutions easily and quickly, before making any financial investment. Most importantly, we save organizations more than 60% of their current average cost of implementation and users remain in control of their data, owning their transformation roadmap.

Xetova’s solution works to impact more than 80% of Africans – 800 million people – in the middle and lower income brackets who rely on government and donor-funded health provision. Inefficient supply chain management affects how these populations access primary healthcare. Lack of timely delivery of supplies due to inefficiencies in supply chain processes negates the health of these vulnerable populations that rely on subsidized healthcare by governments and donors. Xetova provides governments and their central procuring agencies the much-needed visibility on the state of their supply chains, enabling them to make timely decisions to facilitate access, availability, quality and affordability of healthcare products and meet their universal health coverage (UHC) goals. 

Xetova's team hails from developing countries around the world, where the realities of weak healthcare systems are all too familiar.  The team boasts skills ranging from senior technology product managers, cyber security experts, software developers, data scientists and engineers, and specialists in supply chain, community development and business development. The core team is supported by seasoned advisors who bring in years of experience not only in healthcare management but also in designing and leading interventions aimed at improving the effectiveness of the health sector across Sub-Saharan Africa.  

 Our founder, Bramuel Mwalo, has extensive experience working at the intersection of supply chains and technology on the continent. His vision in founding Xetova was to build simple to use and bespoke solutions for organizations in developing markets to solve everyday business challenges using data. Bramuel is a sought after speaker on the role of technology to drive transformation, and was recently named as a Finalist in KPMG’s Tech Innovators for East Africa Competition. Bramuel’s honors include being recognized as a Top 40 under 40 leader by the Business Daily, World Economic Forum Uplink contributor and an MIT Solver fellow due to the exemplary work championed through Xetova. 

As we work to deploy technology and capacity building tools to enhance use of data in healthcare organizations across Africa, we are cognizant of cultural, technical and financial barriers we need to address. These include:

1) Financing proof of concepts (POC): This endeavor is expensive in developing markets due to limited resource contexts of both public and private healthcare organizations. Given that, we will need to deploy significant investment before we are able to fully commercialize our solution. 

2) Mindset and capacity gaps: When executives and managers are accustomed to using outdated systems and processes, they are slow to adopt our solution. We spend a lot of money to help these managers and executives recognize the value that data-driven insights can bring to their organizations.  

3) Data security concerns: Due to the nature and sensitivity of the data we process, we need to be mindful of data security management concerns, particularly where and how the data is housed. 

In applying to the Challenge, we hope to join a supportive community of like-minded entrepreneurs and solvers whom we can learn from, grow together and refine our approach to enhance how healthcare organizations use data to optimize performance and service delivery. We believe this extended network of peers and potential partners will allow us to create a catalytic effect that will accelerate our growth and network which in effect accelerates development efforts in enhancing Africa’s state of primary healthcare.

Our novel insight automation service solution is a modularized software package that plugs into existing data infrastructure to mine insights and recommend or trigger action. The most innovative features of our solution package is the Xetova Sandbox, an ultra-flexible learning and discovery environment where organizations can envision their journey to becoming data driven before making any financial investment. In this environment, enterprises learn and experiment with our solutions and develop a roadmap of what would work for them in their journey to become data driven organizations.  

The second component of our solution package is the Xetova Toolbox, a data science and analytics application store where enterprises can access different solutions for their diverse needs after experimenting and defining what works for them. Using a "Lego" model, Xetova supports enterprises to co-create their bespoke solutions through a customization process that can either be implemented by us or clients’ internal engineering teams. 

Xetova's initiative is the first of its kind to integrate insight sharing and capacity building elements into an end-to-end solution package. We created a proprietary Insights-as-a-Service (IaaS) methodology that allows for co-creation of the solution with our clients, enabling faster and sustained uptake by organizations. Our solution is catalytic in that it brings together various actors to share insights and collaborate on a single platform, delivering lasting systemic change in how this previously fragmented ecosystem works. 

Our solution counts toward UN Sustainable Development Goal 3, which seeks to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all, as well as achieve a model for private sector engagement to support public health goals. 

1 year goal: Scale the initiative and expand into 10 African countries, in collaboration with existing public and private sector partners such as the largest logistics company in Africa, Imperial Logistics and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). 

5 year goal: Xetova will focus on supporting at least 25 countries implement a robust insight service platform to power data utilization, sharing and action triggering in healthcare supply chain management.  

With our solution, countries will drive down the cost of healthcare products, ensure just in time availability of products, reduce wastage of resources, consolidate trade opportunities that could trigger local investments such as set up of manufacturing facilities for certain products closer to the market, and enhance intervention efficacy due to readily available insights. 

Our impact goals are aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goal 3, which seeks to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all as well as achieve a model for private sector engagement to support public health goals.   

We will measure our performance using the following indicators:  

• Ideation and product deployment – Build and deploy solutions that work for our clients’ contexts and unique operating environments. 

• Market acquisition and partnerships – Roll out our solution in 10 countries by the end of 2023 and 25 countries by 2025; strengthen market building efforts through partnerships with mission-aligned public and private sector actors, including donors 

• Measurement – Utilize internal dashboards to gather data and track performance; review quarterly progress towards delivering desired impact; implement a robust monitoring and evaluation (M&E) process to showcase results and impact 

Our vision of success as follows: 

• Enhanced visibility: A holistic view of healthcare supply chains that provides actors with the capability to prepare, coordinate and take action on time.  

• Efficient procurement: With enhanced visibility, mechanisms such as pooled procurement can be put in place to leverage economies of scale, just-in-time delivery and reduced wastage.  

• Collaboration efficiency: Collaboration is the backbone of delivery in supply chain management. With strong reliable insight sharing & communication framework, collaboration efficiency can significantly improve effectiveness of interventions.  

• Growth of investments: Use of data helps in visualizing and profiling opportunities and risk. Potential investor access to this information will significantly accelerate uptake of opportunities such us investment into local manufacturing or distribution infrastructure like cold chains.

Assumptions 

Xetova provides a capacity building, data utilization and insight sharing service that enhances the effectiveness of healthcare supply chain management and related interventions. Key assumptions underlying our theory of change are: 

1. There is a strong desire and political will across Sub-Saharan Africa to transform healthcare supply chains through the use of data.
2. We will create a consistent, positive and common narrative that openly and honestly acknowledges the opportunities and challenges inherent to major transformational change.
3. We will have sufficient funding for scale up, talent and the support structure (i.e., partnerships) for our initiatives 

Logical framework 

Activities 

1. Knowledge-to-action capacity building programs: Focused on building the technical capacity of people leading, managing or influencing sourcing and delivery of essential healthcare products to leverage technology and data; and 
2. Insight mining and sharing programs: Focused on providing tools for real-time insight mining and secure insight sharing among key healthcare ecosystem actors.     

Outputs 

• Healthcare actors (ministries of health, state and non-state procuring agencies, regulators, etc) gain exposure to effective trends and strategies, support in problem statement definition, and are incentivised to own data utilization.
• Healthcare actors (ministries of health, state and non-state procuring agencies, regulators, etc) have access to data utilization tools for the capacity building period, they are supported to co-create solutions, develop implementation roadmaps and mobilize the resources they need to adopt the solutions. 

Outcomes 

1. Enhanced visibility: A holistic view of healthcare supply chains that provides actors with the capability to prepare, coordinate and take action on time.  

2. Efficient procurement: With enhanced visibility, mechanisms such as pooled procurement can be put in place to leverage economies of scale, just-in-time delivery and reduced wastage.  

3. Collaboration efficiency: Collaboration is the backbone of delivery in supply chain management. With strong reliable insight sharing & communication framework, collaboration efficiency can significantly improve effectiveness of interventions.  

4. Increase in investments: Use of data helps in visualizing and profiling opportunities and risk. Potential investor access to this information will significantly accelerate uptake of opportunities such us investment into local manufacturing or distribution infrastructure like cold chains. 

Impact 

1. Healthcare supply chains become data driven and efficient across the continent  

2. Integrated sourcing, distribution and financing efforts by governments, procurement agencies, donors and other healthcare stakeholders 

3. Reduced disability adjusted life years (DALYs) and other health outcomes at population level from better healthcare delivery 

4. Job creation, productivity and increased trade from investments into healthcare supply chains 

Evidence of current impact  

Xetova's technology is currently being adopted as a value chain efficiency tool for Kenya’s healthcare ecosystem, led by the Ministry of Health (MOH). Since implementing our solution, MOH has attained real time visibility of stock availability to facility level, a foundation upon which they are driving universal health coverage (UHC) roll out. 

We build web and mobile applications to connect to healthcare systems securely either via APIs or databases then perform data cleanups and modeling evaluations through custom algorithms. Our solution is powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms that provide insights and forecasting capabilities for various actions across healthcare supply chains.  

On the front end, our platform features multiple analytics dashboards, lists, and insights / highlights for the different user roles. Our software targets all the actors in the supply chain space and stages in the process, from planning, to sourcing, to warehousing, to delivery, and provides much-needed insights using data-driven algorithms and AI. Users have an option to access our solution through a web application or an integration into their existing systems to consume their desired output.

Healthcare officials at ministries of health, primary healthcare facilities (hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, etc.), state and non-state procuring agencies, and regulatory agencies collect primary healthcare data for our solution. They collect data through a combination of manual records and data entry into Excel sheets or directly into enterprise software. Because our software integrates with existing enterprise software, we do not add any additional administrative burden. Healthcare actors are incentivized to collect data because it makes it possible for them to better monitor their work, collaborate, and deliver care more effectively. To ensure the constant flow of real time data into our software, we have provisioned for API integration with our partners. All data collected from our partners is used and stored in line with strict data governance laws and regulations set out locally and internationally. 

Xetova recognizes and celebrate diversity, equity, and inclusivity in all aspects of our work. We see these pillars of excellence as integral to achieving our mission of transforming the way healthcare supply chains work across the continent. Our commitment towards diversity, equity, and inclusivity in our work is demonstrated in the following ways: 

• Our transformation agenda aims to create equitable, accessible and inclusive healthcare for all. 

• We actively build teams of people from various cultures, backgrounds, and life experiences. 

• We have attained the optimal two-thirds level of women in senior decision-making positions across the company. 

• We are committed to a supportive work environment, where employees have the opportunity to reach their fullest potential. We do our utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias, and unlawful discrimination. 

• We create and maintain opportunities for training and dialogue on issues of equality, diversity, and inclusion. 

• We develop mutually beneficial partnerships with individuals and organizations who share common goals and interests. 

Our business model is Insights as a Service (SaaS) and Data Science as a Service (DSaaS). Our current client base includes (1) public sector healthcare organizations such as ministries of health, public hospitals, state procurement agencies and regulators; (2) private sector healthcare organizations such as pharmacies, private hospitals and clinics and (3) non-governmental organizations (NGOs). By using our technology, these organizations unlock massive value from data-powered decision making leading to lower costs of healthcare and improved healthcare outcomes for majority of the population in Africa.   

Future planned IaaS opportunities include providing major donors with planning, reference, monitoring and reporting automation - Africa receives over $ 50 billion in development assistance funds annually. These IaaS opportunities naturally lead to IaaS revenues from membership based subscriptions to the platform in other sectors.  

Xetova implements a hybrid revenue model of funding, funded initially through grants and eventually through subscription and licensing revenues from the exchequer and private sector. Xetova’s strategy for scaling up our solution across Sub-Saharan Africa entails organic growth of our product boosted by strategic partnerships with public, private and NGO/donor organizations for expansion into new markets.  

We are currently looking for grants and raising working capital through investors to accelerate our product growth, complement our ecosystem development and go-to-market strategy. These funds will be used to support our growth plans as we make and grow our ecosystem and sign-up new clients that will sustain our business comfortably.  

We are immediately seeking to raise at least $500,000.00 to provide a capital base to finance further product development and upgrade our platform infrastructure, community and business development operations.  

We have so far raised USD 2M in startup capital from founding investors and USD 300,000 in grants from donors. We used these resources to enhance our solution and business development efforts. From our current user base and growing demand for national healthcare supply chain profiling, we project profitability in the next 12 months, supported further by our on-boarding pipeline plan to sustain profitability as we scale operations. We project an annual revenue of $3,000,000.00 from our second year which will include projected platform subscription fees.