OKdoc

With over 1.4Bn global citizens (would be patients) not receiving any primary healthcare, and only an estimated 10M healthcare professionals in the developing countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the greater sub-continent, RD4A believe that by providing real-time access to primary healthcare, at a low cost to an organisation or entity, be it government, NGO, corporate socially responsible companies and other community representatives at a very low cost, healthcare can be provided free to the underprivileged individuals that are currently the underserved and the most needy.

Not only can money be generated to enhance the service, by offering additional value-added options through the versatile app, but critically it will make a difference in the lives of populations by providing a standards-based, patient centric healthcare ecosystem delivered by any certified and available healthcare provider worldwide.  (First responder/ community healthcare worker, nurse, doctor, specialist etc).  In macro terms, the RD4A solution subscribes to the mantra that healthy populations equate to healthy economies.

Uniquely with RD4A, the patient/user retains their personal health records allowing each individual to benefit from moving their record by agreement to any chosen healthcare provider instantly.

In terms of a conservative rollout, RD4A have estimated that the serviceable initial market is in excess of 70M users (which is about 5% of the TAM).  In the financial forecasts, even a small portion of that market will generate in excess of $100M per annum.

Major global organisations such as the WEF and the WHO agree that Primary Healthcare Systems are lacking in developing markets and that there is a critical need for solutions that can enhance the quality of life, and real-life expectancy in those severely underserved markets. 

The OKdoc platform has been designed to incorporate all touchpoints in the healthcare ecosystem as seen below - 

As can be seen from the above diagram , the OKdoc platform has been designed to not only cater for the Healthcare Worker-Patient (Doctor-Patient) relationship, but has been built to cater for all aspects of the patients journey including admin, follow-up and referrals (including meds)

The four main areas of the platform encompassed above (in Blue) are

1. Single Sign-On Authority Management
   This system which is built on the blockchain is responsible for all aspects of the security of the patient and his/her record.  This is the mechanism by which the record is secured against unauthorised access.  The whole authentication system has a full audit trail that cannot be tampered with.
2. Standards Compliant Document Management System
   This is the foundation on which the patient record is stored.  All aspects of any interaction with the system is stored in the PMR.  This system complies with all common standards such as GDPR and HIPAA
3. Secure Communications Platform
   The communications platform can cater for all aspects of communication incorporating voice, video and chat solutions.  The solution can also transcribe any digital conversations which are stored in the patient record and if needs be, we can translate any real-time consultation in over 130 languages to cater for emerging markets where English may be in short supply.
4. Medical Devices
   Where the medical device can provide a digital output, this information can be taken directly into the platform and displayed either in real-time for a consultation or historically for records.  All of this telemetry information will be stored in the Patient Record for records purposes, cutting down on human error.

The whole platform has been designed with the Community Healthcare Worker (CHW) in mind.  By giving the CHW an Android tablet (plus basic medical devices where appropriate) the CHW records can be digitised at point of care and this data can be reported on from the cloud.  The whole system has been designed to run over 3G which is fairly prevalent in most markets, but the whole system also has an off-line function for those times where there is no connectivity.

It is envisaged that the CHW will be instrumental in not only delivering healthcare where it is needed, but our system will give them the ability to conference in a colleague where necessary for a second opinion, but to also cater for medical device information that can be relayed to the doctor for their opinion.  For example, if the CHW maternity nurse has a hand-held ultrasound probe, he/she can carry out ultrasound scans in the village which can be relayed to a gynecologists remotely to check that the foetus is well.  In this example, more pregnant women can be scanned without the need for them to visit a doctor, thus cutting down on expensive travel whilst at the same time ensuring that the baby and mother have the best possible care.

With all this data being collated in real-time, the ability to start reporting and focusing resources to where they are needed, based on real information which will enable more people being treated.

50% of the population do not have access to primary healthcare services and this is particularly relevant to those people in rural environments in emerging markets.  The OKdoc solution has been specifically designed to cater for this demographic. 

This goes to our mission statement "Helping people get the best medical care wherever they are, leaving no-one behind"

By having a platform that is simple to use and can cater for the CHW, we feel that we can help the current healthcare professionals extend their reach and thus serve more people.

The RD4A team is 95% African and is a very diverse mix of people from different countries, economic backgrounds and gender (in fact 75% of the dev team are black women)

the Senior Management team has many years of commercial experience throughout Africa and have seen all aspects of rural life.  By designing and building our product in Africa, we feel that we are addressing the problems that we have witnessed firsthand with the CHW in mind.

The first two POC that we have undertaken have been with two different NGO in SA (one is in the remote Northern Cape region looking after a mobile clinic treating children in the bush, and the second is a NGO in Cape Town looking after people that need homecare but have no money, about 8,000 home visits a month)

The platform coped with both of these scenarios and we feel that these are two of the more extreme uses of the platform, so are confident we can ensure the platform will be able to scale to our goal of 20M users and beyond

Currently the founders have bootstrapped the development of the platform and are looking for funding partners, either through traditional channels or by helping a NGO to achieve their goals.

We would like to think that the challenge, if we are successful, would help to obtain funding, but at the same time would like some help engaging with NGOs and Government locally

By making the platform customer centric and focusing on the users need, we feel that the platform can be looked at by all players in the health ecosystem in different ways whilst using a common infrastructure.

Also by equipping the CHW with easy to use medical equipment enables the CHW to help diagnose at point of care by obtaining real medical data which can aid remote healthcare professionals to give a more detailed diagnosis as to the problem.

By using this type of technology, it is felt that more relevant PHC screening can be carried out on site thus helping both the healthcare professionals as well as the patient, thus lowering costs and helping more people.

Our impact goals are basically to try and enhance the PHC function is emerging markets

1. Treat more people
2. Better Diagnosis
3. More standardised care (process & people)
4. Lower costs
5. Enhance level of care given
6. More detailed reporting leading to better use of resource

By the end of year 5, we would like to have a subscriber base of 20M subscribers, which would mean that we would be helping to treat at least 2M patients a year. In order to do this, we need to have successful release of the platform in at least 3 countries, but would like to see representative offices in 25 developing markets. We hope that once the platform is proven throughout 2022, we will partner with some of the major NGOs and CSR clients to gain access to their networks, thus helping both organisations reach their goal. We will also be very active in R&D for the CHW population in these countries and would like to help with standards based education programs that will enable the local populace to be self sustaining when it comes to primary healthcare provision. We will be recruiting professionals across all aspects of healthcare services for this
purpose.

The need for digital aggregation within healthcare is evident after the COVID pandemic. This has led to new processes and use cases to address the burgeoning task of communal healthcare. To date all emphasis has been placed on digitization of the primary healthcare environments. We have a talented , caring and focused team to address the need of developing world, grassroots digitization of healthcare solutions. Our plan and model focusses on achieving these goals and our team possesses the necessary experience and skillset to manage and drive these goals. The plan is action oriented and the team is agile enough to adapt to an ever disruptive market, bringing an identifiable solution to a real life problem.

Moonshot Goal 1
To cater for 15% of the underserviced market for PHC - 210M People

Moonshot Goal 2
To be active in 25 emerging markets (countries)

Moonshot Goal 3
OKdoc to be the NHI system of choice in our home country (South Africa)

Currently, the measurements that we are using is

1. Number of Subscribers to platform
2. Number of Patients treated
3. Amount of patients referred
4. Detailed reporting on all metrics around medicine

We are firmly aligned with SDG 3, 

Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

How we are going to measure this is by the number of patients that are treated on our platform, as well as the number of Community Healthcare Workers we can train and support through the platform.

Along the way, we will obviously find other metrics that can be measured, but as we are at the start of our journey, we feel the biggest impact we can have is actually getting treatment to people

We see that by pushing the primary healthcare provision further into the community, we will be helping the Healthcare Professional, the NGO or Funding agent and Government to get closer to their goal of better care for all

By enabling the Patient to have a valid record on the system, no-one is forgotten, and therefore better statistics can be obtained
For the PHC worker, the process will be streamlined and automated where possible, thus enabling them to treat more people, whilst giving a standard level of care
For the Doctor, they will be able to treat more people due to streamlined processes
For the Funder (NGOetc), they will understand where and how their funds are being used, giving a level of comfort
For Government, they will have a better idea of the underlying health of the population and can plan accordingly

The OKdoc platform has been built using standards based software that is hosted in the cloud.  By utilising open standards, it is felt that the ecosystem can accomodate integration to existing clinical systems in place ensuring no data is lost.

The platform is composed of a web based app and a smartphone app for the end user.  This is hosted on the Google Cloud and comprises a blockchain element for patient records and payment systems.

The medical devices are also digital and this means that all telemetry will be recorded directly into the platform thus negating any errors being recorded.  Also by using "wearables", patients can be monitored remotely and any deviations of vital signs can be relayed to a healthcare worker for further investigation.

We have an open standards based communication system that is available and comprises VOIP, Video and Chat functions with automatic transcription.

In the roadmap, there is AI where we can start to machine learn and do some diagnosis without human intervention and this will enable more patients to be seen with less interactions from a very scarce resource which is the Healthcare worker.

Also by automating certain functions, we are hoping that less qualified personnel can be employed with back up from professionals thus creating employment and giving a greater standard of care.

Basically, as the platform has been built to be "customer centric", data will be collected in a myriad of ways and that all players in the ecosystem will be collating data as the platform is used.

However, it is felt that the PHCW will be have the greatest impact on data collection and that they will also benefit the most from the output of the platform.

We have a very cultural mix of the team, in fact most of the team are from previously disadvantaged communities.

As for the Gender mix, the team is split roughly 50/50 across the board in all aspects of delivery (in fact most of the dev team is female)

This is the most important fact as we move forward, and we will be training local people to become CHW