Digital health has been making care more accessible and cost effective in the past couple of years, particularly in central and east African countries.

The most recent issue of the HIMSS Insights eBook, released this week during the HIMSS19 conference taking place in Orlando, looks at innovators addressing the challenges and the needs of the region with the advent of digital health technologies. “We all know technology can transform our lives and has already done it to all of us using mobile phones for everyday living. In the context of the developing world and healthcare we know that from the work that we have done we can make it more accessible and much more affordable,” Tracey McNeill, CEO of Babyl Rwanda, told HIMSS Insights.

Teaming up with players like Babylon Health, the Rwandan government has launched a series of initiatives to leverage the use of digital technology in healthcare. It partnered with Babylon Health in 2016 in a programme called Babyl Rwanda, through which people have access to virtual consultations with doctors and experts, monitoring and diagnostic tools, and an AI pilot programme was later launched in 2018. “We have triage nurses at the call center and alongside the nurses doing their normal triage flows they are now using AI,” McNeill said. “The symptoms a patient describes we are putting in our AI and we are comparing the results of our AI with our own nurse triage. What we are doing is developing the AI and teaching the AI”.

The full article can be accessed for free in the Global Innovators eBook.

MobiHealthNews is a HIMSS Media publication.