With an inspiration from expectant mothers losing their pregnancies on a daily basis due to failure of getting doctors on time and long queues at the hospital, Nuriat Nambogo mobilised a group of her peers to create MobiCare Application, a mobile based application that helps patients schedule appointments with health workers to avoid disappointments and long queues.
A group of seven people pitched the “MobiCare App” idea at the Consortium for Affordable Medical Technologies (CAMTech) at Mbarara University. The application targets the general community inclusive of patients under emergency cases to benefit from this idea.
How it works
The App works if both parties (patient and doctor) have downloaded it.
“The patient selects any region, then district, a health facility, and then a drop-down tool pops up with categories on different specialties and a list of medical workers. One can make a direct call or send a message to schedule an appointment. Doctors are notified in case they don’t respond to missed calls or messages,” she explains.
Doctors’ schedules are also availed; the app shows if a certain doctor has an appointment with another patient on specific days at different facilities.
The app process involves registering private health facilities, willing doctors and people. Uganda National Council for Science and Technology has since approved MobiCare to do the feasibility and acceptability study. The team wants to be sure of what they are doing before releasing the app on the market since the journey has been long.
Achievements so far
The team won the CAMTech Accelerator Award and a seed grant of Shs30m which helped coordinate project work. CAMTech is a global network of academic, clinical, corporate and implementation partners working to accelerate high quality affordable medical technology development.
The money helped them facilitate feasibility and acceptability studies in private hospitals in Mbarara to build and test the innovation. The application is now working under a pilot study with five private hospitals and 192 selected individuals who go to private facilities. Nambogo acknowledges that they have invested time and have roughly used a total estimate of $13,000 up to date.
Benefits of the app
MobiCare bridges gaps between the patients and medical professionals by facilitating direct communication. It showcases some partnered insurance companies, enabling one under insurance to access health services. Nambogo adds, the app helps growing specialists to also be known in their areas of expertise. Also, the public is able to rate or give reviews according to their service delivery, which other patients can refer to accordingly.
Below are some screenshots from the MobiCare Android Application;
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