HEALTHCARE IN AFRICA
Grepelon Health is a technology startup based in Accra, Ghana that is accelerating the innovation to develop health systems in Africa.
What is a health system?
World Health Organization WHO defines a health system as an organization of people, institutions, and resources that deliver health services to meet the health needs of a target populations. It consist of all organizations, people and actions whose primary intent is to promote, restore or maintain health. This includes efforts to influence determinants of health as well as more direct health-improving activities. It includes what people by themselves do at home to maintain health.
HEALTHCARE IN AFRICA
Africa throughout history is known to be home to the weakest and poorest health systems globally, impacting heavily on the people whose lives depend on the system for healthcare. The system that governs care is broken, and eventually, we’re only the definition, or if you may, the expression of our systems, we do not rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the state of our systems.
Africa bears 23% of the world’s disease burden, whilst only are consumers of just 1% of healthcare goods and services globally. –Brookings institute
Cause of deaths between 2009–2019 was consistently malaria, which accounted for 33.9% of deaths in African children.
Children in sub-Saharan Africa are more than 15 times more likely to die before the age of 5 than children in high income countries — UN:
4 out of every 5 deaths of children under 5yo occur in Africa and southern Asia — UN
Globally, 50% of children under five who die of pneumonia, diarrhea, measles, HIV, tuberculosis and malaria are in Africa, according to the World Health Organization -WHO.
In sub-Saharan Africa, Doctor: Patient ratio is 1:50,000 every 1.2 billion people. Nigeria has a ratio 1:10,000, with 24,000 practicing doctors for a population of 200 million. Ghana records a ratio of 1:10,400 with 9,500 practicing doctors and dentists, and 4,928 physician assistants. The massive brain drain happening in Africa is leading to a national health crisis, a severe shortage in health practitioners.
For many Physicians, health practitioners and patients, these are not just numbers on charts and graphs, they’re realities we face every day. Practitioners need tools and the right health technologies to streamline care delivery and patients need their physicians.
“African healthcare system is a nightmare every clinician and their patients want to wake out of” — Godson Greene Kpodo
But even though we’re overwhelmed with disease and the care delivery machinery is poor, producing the worse health outcomes for patients, the opportunity in the healthcare industry is astounding. It estimates “Health and wellness at $259 Billion, and can create about 16 million jobs by 2030, having a financing gap at least $66 Billion”. –FDHIC.
“Funding for health technology in Africa has risen in recent years, with the sector expected to be worth more than $100 billion by 2030, according to a Google and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) report. “ –World Economic Forum.
“Global primary care market is worth $260 Billion. Africa’s opportunity stands at $100 Billion”
–Fierce healthcare.
SOME CRITICAL PILLARS THAT GOVERN HEALTH SYSTEMS
Health systems can be segmented in two, national health systems and hospital (organizational) health systems. The grand design of how systems are built determines its flows.
1. NATIONAL HEALTH SYSTEMS
Below are some thoughts on the significant pillars that govern national health systems. These are only a few out of many others, and are directly linked to how Grepelon Health is designing the plan to develop healthcare.
1. Access to quality care
2. Health technology
3. Health infrastructure
4. Health financing
5. Health information system (data).
2. HOSPITAL (ORGANIZATIONAL) HEALTH SYSTEMS
Hospital (organizational) health systems consists of people, processes, resources and how they’re interconnected to deliver care. Grepelon’s innovation is targeted at developing both national and hospital health systems and optimize the care delivery process through technology. Below are some pillars and problems of hospital (organizational) health systems. These directly linked to what Grepelon Health innovating and the technologies we’re developing.
1. Gap in clinical communication, careflow coordination and task management for clinicians and hospital staff
2. Fragmentated clinical workflows, services and patient data.
3. Poor Physician-Patient engagement interface
4. Poor architecture of EHR technology (electronic health records).
African hospitals constantly are delivering healthcare that patients constantly feel unsatisfied of, and many today will avoid the hospital than go. Today, hospitals are a death trap, than they’re places of healing, they’re places of stress and laborious processes for patients before they get the care they went for.
Viewing healthcare in this light, we at Grepelon health are determined to drive healthcare into the future, where patients feel care for and physicians having the tools to save families and people.