By Antony Mutunga
The Covid pandemic presented a clear picture of how Africa’s healthcare system continues to lag behind. During an electioneering year, healthcare ought to be among the top agenda for those looking to form government. The Jubilee government made lofty promises for health in 2013 and again in 2017 but not much has changed.
The private sector continues to pick up the slack as different organizations integrate technology in the sector. An example of these organizations is AfyaRekod, a Kenyan bashed healthcare technology company. The company has launched a fully automated universal patient portal that looks to transform the face of patient care across Africa and the entire world.
The platform, which uses blockchain technology, will allow patients and their medical professionals to have real time access to their medical data and history. Not only will this ensure medical record management is efficient, while ensuring timely access to information in case of any information.
Medical records are crucial for medical professionals to identify a patient’s past problems and medical information, its only through these records, that the right and most accurate course of treatment can be given.
AfyaRekod CEO John Kamara created an AI platform to track health data, aimed at bridging the gap between health care and treatment, anywhere, anytime for patients, medical professionals, providers and organisations. According to Kamara, the capture and storage of accurate data across every possible level of health infrastructures is a core problem around the world and especially in Africa.
“Bringing real time access to data that captures the mobility of health records was the solution. Our tool now allows patients to create a portal with all their health data and most importantly gives patients sovereign rights of ownership of their data. The patient logs in and sees all their information, from every healthcare provider they have interacted with. The power of patients owning their health records and having real time access to their information is lifesaving, and it is their right to have access to it,” said Kamara.
Medical misdiagnosis is a major problem even in developed countries. The 2015 IOM report showed that around 12 million people were misdiagnosed that years, with less developed countries and emerging economies being at the most risk. However, with the blockchain solution, these regions have an opportunity to improve medical record management.
The AfyaRekod universal patient portal will include a consolidated mobile data health passport that allows patients consistent access to their health-records, as well as access to a marketplace of various services within the healthcare ecosystem in real-time. It will offer a secure decentralised, intelligent telehealth solution, healthcare resources, symptom trackers, reminders and notifications, as well as the mobility of the record across multiple channels and devices. And even though it will be open to all people, it will be especially useful to those with chronic illnesses, pregnant women and those with hereditary diseases.
The platform will not only be useful to patients but doctors as well as it will offer an electronic health management system with digital tools to manage all key aspects of hospital services and clinics. It will also include other functionalities such as hospital management, patient management, knowledge management and inventory management, as well as an AI driven reporting tool that allows organisations to make data driven decisions, predictions and early disease identification. NGO’s and other related organizations can also register and manage their beneficiary groups on the platform. (
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