Talamus

Every year, over 500 Million Africans delay or forego healthcare due to access and cost.  Another 500 Million get subpar medical care. 

The reasons for this are many fold:  (1) There can be as much as 700% markup in medication by the time it get to African patients. (2) About 20% of medications on the market in Africa are fake. (3) There is shortage of healthcare infrastructure and personnel (4) Healthcare is not safe (eg: 25X maternal mortality rate). (5) 70% o healthcare expenditure is out of pocket (6) 40% of healthcare resources are lost to inefficiency. 

All of this make obtaining good healthcare a monumental task for Africans and its no surprise that every year, 11% of Africans go into  poverty due to healthcare expenditure. 

Our platform Talamus is designed to solve these issues. 

Talamus is democratizing access to healthcare for Africans through the use of technology. 

Our platform consists of 5 main pillars: 

1) A practice management/Enterprise Resource Planning system for hospitals and clinics currently using paper filing methods only. 

2) Provides pharmacies with an inventory and Point of Sale system. 

3) Appointment scheduling and results submission feature for community laboratory and imaging centers. 

4) Supply chain module to ensure suppliers and clinics/pharmacies are in sync with inventory needs and can supply authentic medications.  

 5) Patient-centered mobile app that allows patients to take control of their own health care and understand the diagnoses and treatments they are given by healthcare professionals. Patient are able to search for medication availability on their phone, compare prices, request and pay for medications. Through this, patient can save as much as 30% on the cost of medications. Patient are able to also search and directly book appointment with clinics, labs and diagnostic centers. Our platform has demonstrated as much as 60% reduction on clinic wait times for patients. The app give the patient an unprecedented level of control and choice in the healthcare process. 

where we have currently deployed or piloted the program: 

• -In Nigeria, we have onboarded with 136 clinics/hospitals,125 pharmacies and 16 labs
• -In Ghana, have signed deals with 35 clinics, 55 pharmacy outlets, and 25 labs. 
• -In Zimbabwe, we have partnered with ECONET to deploy in 406 clinics and 363 pharmacies (currently in process).

Our vision is  to become the one-stop shop for patients to search, find and interact with the entire healthcare value chain. We are deploying next-generation technology to safely allow patients unprecedented levels of access to health care; eliminating language barriers to access, empowering patients to choose and participate in their own care process, while increasing visibility for providers. Our initial target is one billion African who are either not participating in the healthcare process or are currently getting subpar care. While our initial focus is Africa,  the problems we are solving has similar parallels in other LMICs. We believe principles embedded in our Platform is applicable in other regions.  

Talamus seeks to be at the forefront of healthcare transformation across the four cardinal entities that make up the health ecosystem; PATIENTS, PROVIDERS (Doctors, Pharmacists, Nurses etc.), PAYERS (Health Insurance) and POLICY MAKERS.

Through the digitization of health records, we will provide a more streamlined approach to healthcare, which will give the healthcare worker and patient much better communication. 

Our inventory and supply chain modules will ensure medications are delivered on time and in the amounts that pharmacies require. Through these outputs, our outcomes will be improved health among the community via improved communication and organization standards throughout the healthcare system.

With regards to patients, we give them the tools to search, find, and the help they need in a few easy steps with culturally relevant tools built into it. By providing an unprecedented level of transparency and bringing efficiency into the market, Talamus will bring down the cost of healthcare for patients.

The Talamus app will help connect all manner of groups included in the healthcare process, from patients, to clinics, to local government, community health workers, to community pharmacies and labs. 

We have engaged in user experience research and design while building this app. We will use beta testing with the aid of patients in the Lagos State program, who belong to a lower socioeconomic class. Women in particular in the stages of pregnancy will test the app to ensure the strength of its antenatal and postnatal tracking features.

Our backend analytics allows us to collect several data points which can be further classified into specific demographics: gender, location, age, and medical condition, among others. 

The majority of our team members were born and raised in LMICs and come from/live in communities with acute problem of healthcare shortage. We understand these problems first hand as many of us go through these issues  with our families everyday. 

 We have already deployed our solution in these communities and gotten very valuable feedback which we have incorporated into our product. 

Furthermore,  have a rare combination of subject matter expertise and experience with on field execution within our team. The skills of our lead team members include neurosurgery, public health, public policy, software engineering, pharmacology, project management, pharmaceutical marketing, AI & machine learning expertise, and program management.

We are applying to this challenge to help us scale our current platform. We have been to demonstrate good traction but we have a lot more that we plan  do. 

we believe the association with MIT solve an its partners will help with overcoming some of the barriers with market entry by making introductions to key opinion leaders and public health officials. 

The financial aspect with help us further with expansion of our features and business development. 

Our solution is different from others on the market because it integrates a variety of tools across the entire healthcare value chain and solves the many problems patients and providers face as described below: 

1.     Problem: Siloed, inefficient health information systems

Solution:  An Electronic Health Record/Enterprise Resource Planning system for hospitals and clinics currently using paper filing methods only. 

2.     Problem: Medications stock inventories are not consistently updated, and fake medications get mixed in with legitimate ones.

Solution:  Provide pharmacies with an inventory and Point of Sale system and connect them directly to the vetted suppliers.

3.     Problem: Efficiencies in clinics and long waiting times: 

Solution:  Open appointment scheduling for community clinics, laboratories and imaging centers.

4.     Problem: High cost of medication procurement

Solution:  Supply chain module to ensure suppliers and clinics/pharmacies are in sync with inventory needs and can supply authentic medications.

5.     Problem: Lack of access/transparency and high cost for patients 

Solution: Patient-centered mobile app that allows patients to take control of their own healthcare and understand the diagnoses and treatments they are given by healthcare professionals.

6. Problem: Lack of actionable data insight for policy makers. 

   Solution: Talamus comprehensive backend data analytics platform for populations health 

Our goal over the next several years is to connect as much as 100 million Africans to an integrated healthcare value chain. 

We have started the process by systematically recruiting and onboarding hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, labs and imaging centers in both the public and private sectors. 

Our efforts have already yielded early results by showing a 60% reduction in clinic wait times and 30% reduction in cost fo medications. We believe we can improve these number further as our ecosystems expands and matures. 

We want to to be the go to place for patients to find authentic medications by expanding out list of authenticated supplier to deals with the issue of fake mediations

We also plan to offer financials services to Africans who have problems affording healthcare when they need it. 

Through the digitization of health records, we will provide a more streamlined approach to healthcare, which will give the healthcare worker and patient much better communication. 

Our inventory and supply chain modules will ensure medications are delivered on time and in the amounts that pharmacies require. Through these outputs, our outcomes will be improved health among the community via improved communication and organization standards throughout the healthcare system.

With regards to patients, we will give them the tools to search, find, and the help they need in a few easy steps with culturally relevant tools built into it. By providing an unprecedented level of transparency and bringing efficiency into the market, Talamus will bring down the cost of healthcare for patients.

1. Improved medication availability and authenticity in underserved communities; 

2. Access to healthcare services via in-person and telemedicine services 

3. Improved patient safety through improved documentation and follow-up from all medical encounters   

4. Improved health-seeking behaviour by leveraging native language and cultural competency tools built into the app.

5. Decreased in Clinic wait times. 

6. Saving on Medications. 

7. Increase in the number of patient served. 

8. Increase in access to services via telemedicine module. 

Our theory is change is that an integrated healthcare ecosystem that gives patients and unprecedented insight and control over their health will ultimately lead to better quality of care and Lower cost.

The healthcare value chain in most  LMICs is hyper-fragmented, paper based and lack integration between value and process. Consequently, patients are left to navigate a very confusing, expensive and unsafe industry with very little available information to make decisions about their health. 

Currently there is high mark up (up to 700%) in medications and 20% of medications are fake. There several intermediaries between medicine manufacturers and retail pharmacies. This drives up procurement costs. Secondly, retails pharmacies don't have the tolls to decide the origin of their medications. Furthermore, patient don't have a easy way to find availability of medications and do price comparison. on the one hand, by connecting retail pharmacies directly to authenticated suppliers on our platform we will drive down procurement and eliminated the issue of fake medicines. Some of this saving will be passed onto patients. On the other hand, by giving patients the ability to search for medication availability and do price comparison, they can further save money. So far,  we have been able to show as much as 30% savings in price of medications through this process. 

A study conducted by the Brookings institute showed that about 38% of African delay or forgo healthcare very year due to cost and access. We believe our platform will provide patients with the ability to evaluate and access services that may not necessarily be in the immediate vicinity through the use of our mobile App. 

In the age on pandemic and other emerging threats, it is no secret that data plays an pivotal role in the prevention and management of disease threats and public health. In many LMICs, the high prevalence of paper based records presents a unique challenge to this process. Digitization effort will serve as a anonymize data reservoir for analysis and public health decision making. 

Webapp or inventory, practice management and supply chain modules

Mobile App for patient module.

Our each provider gets and analytics module to help them run their clinic, labs etc better. 

Talamus does anonymized data aggregation of all users on the platform . 

Talamus has established a culture of openness and trust with employees and any unethical behaviour, harassment or discrimination is not tolerated. These are all documented in the company’s ethics policies. 

Talamus has a documented ethics policy and also ensures proper work ethics amongst staff. There is organized communication with clients, which ensures all due processes are followed. 

We have zero tolerance policy for discrimination based on gender, race, national origin, religion, political views and sexual orientation. 

Staff are trained on workplace policies, discipline, appropriate use and many others

Our unique business model takes a percentage of various transactions that occur on the platform via channel partnerships with payment processors or directly via agreements with clinics, pharmacies, insurers, healthcare systems and governments. 

All patients have free access to our platform, with only clinics, labs and pharmacies paying a fee to use it. In 2023 we expect to begin receiving revenue from the analytics derived from them. Target clients for analytics sales include pharmaceutical firms, Artificial Intelligence (AI) developers, public health organizations, non-governmental organizations ("NGOs"), and governments.

We current charge providers  (commits clinics m pharmacies, labs, governments)  and suppliers and monthly fee to use our platform. 

We are currently on pace for $800,000 ARR for 2022. We expect to be profitable by end of 2023 based on our current pipeline.