LifeFundy - The Pay-For-Perfomance App For Health Services

Based on Thomas Pogge's Health Impact Fund proposal, LifeFundy is a website that works as a online community based on crowdfunding, where institutions will provide health services with the lowest cost possible to argentinian more needed provinces and they will be rewarded based on their actual impact on society with a pool's money raised from donations. Institutions now can freely decide the market for their services based on where the patients are and not where those who can afford it are.

The 10/90 gap is a term adopted by the Global Forum for Health Research to describe a phenomenon observed in 1990 where less than 10% of worldwide medical research budget was spent on trying to prevent diseases on developing countries where over 90% of all preventable deaths worldwide occurred. This controversy is due to the displacement on social priorities and bioethics. For example, nowadays is more economical convenient for laboratories to investigate cures for acne than Chagas disease which causes on average 14000 deaths in 21 american countries and leaves around 70 millions habitants on risk. Year by year, governments and organisations work together to help reduce this statistics and solve this urgent conflict but it seems not to be enough. It's time to rethink our strategy.

In 2016, more than half of all deaths in low-income countries were caused by the so-called “Group I” conditions, which include communicable diseases, maternal causes, conditions arising during pregnancy and childbirth, and nutritional deficiencies. By contrast, around less than 7% of deaths in high-income countries were due to such causes. The spread of this type of diseases can be avoided bringing proper health services to this forgotten communities.

LifeFundy is a group from Argentina, a latin american country where a third of the population don't receive the adequate medical attention they need at the right time, that is more than 15 millions of people that don't have access to a proper health care service. The key reason of this problem is mainly economical, it tends to affect poor families who keep dying from totally avoidable causes. We want to stop people dying from causes like Chagas disease, that affects more than a million and a half of the argentinians. We can bring this people appropriate health services and improve their life quality.

Accordingly to World Health Organisation, around 1.2 billion people on earth live in extreme poverty (less than one dollar per day). There is a part of society who is left behind in the health care system because they cannot afford to have access to basic resources and is forced to live in environments that make them ill without clean water, decent shelter or adequate sanitation. Every individual has the right to have adequately life conditions and to cover their basic human needs. We need to focus on actions to protect vulnerable individuals and provide social assistance for those in need. One of the main problems is that social priorities are misplaced and companies can't reach out to a part of the market because is not profitable. The idea of LifeFundy is to raise money to promote supplying of effective health goods and services with the lowest price possible to cover the costs of production and distribution, and pay companies based on their impact on society with a crowdfunding system. This way companies have and incentive to reach out the forgotten parts of the health care market and enable a more equitable access to it.

Through a micro donations models we can reach a part of the population that has been forgotten at the same time that companies improve their social image and make a profit out of new shares of the market. Likewise, preventable deaths in Argentina and other Latin American countries will be reduced, resulting in a better quality life for habitants in this region and an increase in life expectancy.

In summary:

• Crowdfunding model
• Adoption of “mini-HIF” Proposal
• Social networking

LifeFundy will have a platform where donations can be made. Moreover, this will be the channel that LifeFundy will use to reward institutions that provide outstanding health care services.

LifeFundy made a survey among 1000 people to try to understand which will be the impact of going foward with this project. It must be acknowledged that the results that we obtained were outstanding, were we got that 47% of the people answered that they will definitely try to financially collaborate to the project. 

Today, we do not have the possibility to make our project possible. An initial investment is needed to provide security facilites, in order to guarantee that the money is correctly delivered to us by users that believe in LifeFundy. This is why our solution is not serving anyone.

LifeFundy believes that the main groups of people around the country that needs inmediate help are mainly located in the provinces of Salta, Chaco and Formosa, where around 50% of the population is poor and many of them cannot afford to access to the health care services these provinces provide, due to the fact that these ones are located in the capital of these provinces. We estimate that nearly 500,000 people are involved in some way in this group. This will definitely be our goal in the next 5 years. Some facts that should be taken into account are:

• In the province of Salta and Chaco, 47,8 and 26.5 out of 100 thousand inhabitants are inffected of tuberculosis.
• Nearly 25% of these type of diseases are actually treated in some way.
• 33,33% of the population of Argentina does not receive medical attention when is needed.

• LifeFundy is looking foward to give medical attention to more than 250,000 people in the next 5 years. This will avoid the death of countless lives, making a real impact in the life expectancy on these provinces.
• We truly believe that a formal, strong organization will be made by doing this project. This will help to expand our help to other provinces who have similar conditions.

LifeFundy is a project which needs mainly financial help. The costs of having an organization of this kind are beyond our range. It is a fact that many contributors are needed to make this project happen. On the other hand, this help will make a massive impact on many places of Argentina.

Furthermore, legal services will be needed too. In order to provide rewards to some institutions, the goals that will be considered to have these rewards should be written in some way.

LifeFundy expects to expand rapidly among social media. Communication is the key of making this problem as a public concern. The more we make visible this problem across the country, the more financial aid we will get. Real problems must be fixed first in order to grow as a country.

We are not part of a larger organization. However, we think big as if we were one of them.

Taking into account the fact that our project is just in early development in the sense that no companies has partenered with us yet, we are just a small team of people who want to make an impact in this world.

Firstly, because we were born and raised in Argentina. Moreover, we understand which is the situation today for a non-developed economical country like ours and above all, because we are deeply involved and worried of the problems our country has, and we are totally committed to change that. 

Today, we do not have any partner to make this project happen. However, we expect in the future that many organizations will want to help us to make a change in this matter. We will be totally grateful and supportive with any organization who may want to participate in any way they can.

Value proposition:

LifeFundy is a website that works as an online community where institutions will provide health care services with the lowest possible cost to argentinian more needed provinces. LifeFundy encourages big organizations to do this by rewarding the ones that made an outstanding work.

Impact measures:

• Amount of LifeFundy users.
• Money donated.
• Amount of organizations helping to reach LifeFundy Goal.

Customer value proposition:

Accesibility to health care services.

Customer:

• Well-off individuals who are socially conscious.
• Big health care organizations.

Segments:

Poor people that live in very small towns, where unfortunately health care services are not in their daily concerns.

Key activities:

• Managing LifeFundy platform.
• Giving rewards to organizations who worked exceptionally well.
• Annual events to raise awareness among the population.
• Collecting donations and distribute them correctly.

Type of intervention:

We are the channel between the poor people of Argentina and big organizations. We make sure that everyone can access to the different health care services they may need.

Channels:

• LifeFundy.org platform.
• Annual events inviting big health care organizations.

Key resources:

• Donations (includes organizations willing to collaborate with LifeFundy).
• Big staff.
• LifeFundy.org platform.

Partners:

• Big health care organizations.

Revenue:

• Donations.
• Financial help of big health care organizations.

Cost structure:

• Staff.
• Online platform.
• Callcenter.
• Property costs.

Our structure is based on the Low-Income Client market model. We help poor people that live in very small towns by making sure they will have access to some type of health care service.

Big institutions will provide health care services with the lowest possible cost, and then LifeFundy will reward the ones that made an outstanding work. The money that we will use will come mainly from donations.

Our solution is an idea, a concept in which we believe. We do not have the resources to make this project happen. However, we will be totally predisposed to be part of a larger organization that wants to develop our project. We understand that to observe results in a project like this, more people are needed to make it happen.

I did not select other.

First of all, taking into account the fact that our solution is now only an idea, we would like partners who think independently, like to problem-solve, are proactive, are responsible and work well on a team. 

The organizations that will be neccesary in this project are mainly big charity organizations who not only can financially help us with all the costs the project itself has, but also with connections who can accelerate our solution.

Our team will not apply for the Al Innovations Prize.

If our team wins the prize, we would encourage other ONG to join us in our mission. We understand that with the money given by the Healthy Cities Prize, is just the beginning. However, it must be acknowdleged that our main goal is not to win money in this contest to improve the structure of the organization but to make visible the problem our country is dealing with nowadays. 

Our team will not apply for the Everytown for Gun Safety Prize.

Our team will not apply for the Women Prize.

Our team will not apply for the Innospark Ventures Prize.

Our team will not apply for the UN Women She Innovates Prize.