Kenyan-based AfyaRekod recently launched the fully automated Universal Patient Portal – a blockchain driven technology that claims to transform the face of patient care across Africa and the World. Through a secure central platform (Rekod.com) patients and the medical professionals treating them will have real-time access to their health data and medical history not only ensuring effective ongoing medical management, but critical, timely information in an emergency.
The brain-child of CEO John Kamara, AfyaRekod was founded in 2019 as an Adanian Lab start-up with seed funding from Mac Venture Capital and Next Chymia. Kamara saw first-hand how the lack of medical records and static data could lead to poor medical management when a friend died having received the wrong medical intervention in an emergency. Kamara built an AI platform that would track health data, aimed at bridging the gap between health care and treatment, anywhere, anytime for patients, medical professionals, providers and organisations.
Medical records are a vital tool in managing health, notifying healthcare professionals of medications, chronic illness, past problems and procedures and ultimately allowing them to determine the most accurate course of treatment. Misdiagnosis is serious and can lead to a delay in treatment of the real condition. An IOM report released in 2015 indicated that around 12 million instances of patient misdiagnosis occur annually in the USA, a country with a well-developed healthcare sector. Misdiagnosis is preventable, but only if health records are accurate, and mobile.
“We identified the capture and storage of accurate data across every possible level of infrastructure as a core problem. Bringing real time access to data 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 the information from the hospital. They don’t have to ask the hospital or beg for information. It’s their right to have access to it”, said Kamara.
The subscription-driven Universal Patient Portal is a blockchain-driven, consolidated and mobile data health passport, that allows patients consistent access to their health-records, as well as access to a marketplace of various health services within the ecosystem in real-time.
Over and above patients securely managing their health records, including prescriptions and hospital visit summaries, the AfyaRekod Universal Patient Portal offers a secure decentralised, multilingual and intelligent telehealth solution, health resources, symptom trackers, reminders and notifications, as well as the mobility of the record across multiple channels and devices. Though any patient can use these tools, it is especially useful for patients with chronic illness, parents, pregnant women, and patients with hereditary diseases.
The AfyaRekod platform extends to include doctors, offering a digital clinic with a B2B platform, tele-pharmacy tool and e-prescription platform. For providers, the platform has multiple 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 strategic decisions, predications and early identification using data analytics. NGO’s and other related organizations can register and manage their target groups on the platform.
AfyaRekod is Part of the NVIDIA AI program via AICE Africa and has over 150,000 users in Kenya alone and is launching in Nigeria, SA and Zambia in July. AfyaRekod is accessed via an app (android and iOS) and web portal via rekod.com
AfyaRekod’s key partnerships include The Association of Sisterhoods of Kenya (AOSK), Healthy Mind Foundation(Nigeria), Alchemy (South Africa), AURA (South Africa), GE Healthcare, Telkom, The Africa Block-Chain Center, The AI Center of Excellence, Adanian Labs, and Lishe Living among others.
Currently in their B2B product, AfyaRekod has reportedly onboarded over 50 hospitals.
