Establishing a healthcare facility in remote, rural areas is, to put it mildly, challenging. Things we take for granted in first world countries, like electricity, air-conditioning, clean potable water, transport, and a myriad other things, are often simply not available. Excess, in these locations, usually applies to nature’s little demons, mosquitos (think Dengue), flies (think Trypanosomiasis) and fire ants (run).
It is into these environments that we bring technology. Not merely medical equipment, but the tools, services and software to support our physicians and clinical staff. We are as passionate about digitizing rural healthcare as we are about providing care to these communities. Our systems and clinics are designed to enable this vision and empower the practitioners who use them.
Something as simple as tablet connected to the internet can provide a doctor, newly qualified or otherwise, access to a host of tools that are essential aids to diagnosis and patient care. Connect that caregiver to systems that understand and support his needs, and you fundamentally change the level of care he can provide.
Design with intent
Our clinics are built from the ground up with technology in mind. We build in generators as fallbacks for power cuts (frequent in rural areas) and supplement this with solar panels in areas where sunshine makes the energy yield viable. The internet plays a key role in connecting our caregivers to the tools we provide and great care is taken in providing reliable bandwidth for always-connected devices.
Our bespoke Clinic Software is designed around our doctors and patients needs. Our global intranet connects our physicians to their colleagues, often on the opposite side of the world, providing an indispensable network of support and knowledge. Our Patient Manager is the digital heart of our Provider System, digitizing the patients entire medical history and providing physicians with DDX, voice notes and a host of features to ensure the patient receives the best care possible.
We open our Booking System to our patients, allowing them to book appointments from their smartphones, with updates provided via SMS. In rural communities, patients can often travel miles on foot, sometimes for a day or longer, to find care, only to arrive at a clinic when no doctor is in attendance. Our systems ensure these occurrences are kept to a minimum. The efficacy of this system also prevents bottlenecks in waiting rooms and patients waiting for hours to be attended to.
All our ultrasound scans are uploaded to our cloud for further evaluation. Qualified doctors and sonographers in countries including the U.S, U.K and EU selflessly donate their time and experience to evaluate these scans for potential issues affecting the fetus and mother. This mechanism provides another level of safety for patients and supports new doctors still honing their skills.
All of these tools can be simply and securely accessed from a tablet or laptop connected to the internet. Eminently achievable, from anywhere in the world, given the correct planning and resources.
The net result of technology enabled medicine
In first world countries we often take technology for granted. It has enabled healthcare to make huge strides in the past decade alone, but as with all good things, it has also become instrumental in impeding access to care. Modern healthcare has shifted its focus from utilizing technology to benefit patients and providers, to streamlining care procedures, automating processes to ensure maximum throughput, rather than maximizing care.
Clinics IV Life would not exist in a perfect world, one where care was universally accessible and equitably distributed. Our modern healthcare systems are designed to entrench well established care biases. They have become efficient conveyor belts, technologically enabled to maximize profits while reducing costs for the industry, all at the expense of the provider and their patients.
Our clinics are about providing a solution to these biases and experience teaches us that duplicating a flawed system always results in the same flawed outcome. We believe we have taken the puzzle pieces and created a new model that utilizes the best of what technology offers, a model that is designed, first and foremost, to serve the needs of our patients and our providers that care for them. Both are equally deserving.