Inspiration
Last year, Ibrahima took his sister in law to the hospital for a checkup during the month of Ramadan. To avoid the long waiting time at the hospital and traffic congestion during rush hours, they decided they'd go at 5:00am only to become number 56th on the queue. To their surprise, the hospital would only open at 7am and Ibrahima's sister in law could only get to see the doctor at around 10:30am. Additionally, after this first checkup, they had to carry some documents from this facility to another, involving more delays and frustration. From this experience to which we both relate, we realized that it would be game changing to allow patient just like Ibrahima's sister in law to enjoy the comfort of their home until their appointment time is close.
What it does
People from countries in the African continent can be able to book appointments at the nearest hospital that offers the best treatment services of what ails them though the Skedula app. They are also able to pay through Mpesa, a mobile payment system common in subsaharan Africa.This reduces the queues in healthcare centers leading to faster service and also reduces the risk of transmission of diseases. It also keeps track of the patient's medical history which means doctors across different hospitals can be able to access past medical history with the patients consent and thus the doctor can have a better understanding of the patients history.
How we built it
After a thorough brainstorm process, Ibrahima and I settled on this idea. Ibra is good with the frontend so he primarily worked on the mobile app while I worked on the backend. The mobile app was built using React Native while the backend used NodeJS and MongoDB.
Challenges we ran into
We got stuck while deploying to Azure but eventually fixed it. Two of our team member dropped out yesterday so the work got doubled for each of us.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Working on a potentially impactful product that could power a whole continent's healthcare system. Fixing the Azure bug. Working with the the Mpesa API- Kenya's mobile money payment system.
What we learned
We learned to use Microsoft Azure, API design, designing for healthcare, delivering a product in a really short period of time. We also learned more about the healthcare space in the African continent based on our preliminary research.
What's next for Skedula
We plan to launch an MVP at a local hospital in Nairobi to see how users react to the product. We will then iterate to improve the product and build a Beta. We will most likely release the beta in the summer. We also want to add features to call ambulances since such services are not easily Google -able in the African continent. We also see a possible partnership with insurance companies to increase the number of Africans signing up for health insurance.
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