Tackling Brain Drain with Telemedicine, AI
TECH HUB
Ayodeji Ake writes that prioritising telemedicine and the adoption of Artificial Intelligence go a long way to address the acute brain drain challenge Nigeria is facing due to the ‘Japa’ syndrome.
Dne of the advice a Nigerian may get these days ironically is ‘please don’t fall sick,’ as the brain drain in the health sector hits deeper.
Unfortunately, hospital beds and wards are running empty owing to the migration of Nigerian doctors who are searching for greener pastures.
Leveraging technology by prioritising existing telemedicine platforms and creating artificial intelligence applications that would assist patients in getting basic healthcare services and virtual medical consultations may reduce the burden of brain drain.
Speaking with THISDAY, the Founder of Wellahealth, a telemedicine platform providing affordable health insurance plans, Dr. Ikpeme Neto, revealed that telemedicine has the potential of not totally solving the issue of brain drain, but has the capacity to solve between 50 to 60 per cent of brain drain in the health sector if prioritised.
“Brain drain is a major issue, and we are losing doctors to the diaspora and there are several solutions to it. Telemedicine can be one of the potential solutions that can help. The reality is that there is already a lot of telemedicine going on both locally and with even doctors from the diaspora advising family and friends via several technological platforms.
“Telemedicine doesn’t solve all the problems, but it can solve between 50 to 60 per cent of basic healthcare concerns that people have. So, they can consult remotely.
“Even though it’s not a cure-all, it can help to reduce the burden where doctors can support their colleagues remotely. The role technology plays is quality assurance and ensuring people don’t get left behind and getting access is more equitable. Yes, telemedicine can help to reduce the burden of brain drain.
“Telemedicine is already working in Nigeria.
“We have doctors who are doing consultations via Short Message Service (SMS), mobile phone calls, and WhatsApp. It is already working. We need a defined framework around how we make it safe and of quality.
“Also, people can tap into it both on the user side so that customers and patients know where to go to get good telemedicine services. on the provider quality side, to know how to deliver care via telemedicine.”
Speaking further, he said: “I think the reality is ongoing. All we need to do is to improve the knowledge, accessibility, and quality of it. it’s already in place in Nigeria and we need to make it work better.
“We now have 2000 healthcare providers anchored by community pharmacies on our network, we are seeing about 15,000 patients with our services and we have sold hundreds of thousands of healthcare plans. we are starting to work with the state government and our goal is to reach millions of people across Nigeria.”
Challenges
For him, challenges bordering on telemedicine are – quality assurance, awareness, and accessibility. Neto believes when telemedicine is regulated and monitored, it would provide quality healthcare to Nigerians.
“The challenges of telemedicine read around quality assurance. I think one of the bigger challenges is around accessibility to the people if they have access and are also aware. Quality is also one of the challenges. Ensuring measures around the quality of care that’s been provided by telemedicine and the regulations in place for the quality of care that have been monitored and for feedback to be provided.
“There are also issues around affordability, price and access, but those border on the ecosystem or health system issues that we need to address with more funding, training, and more healthcare workforce and beyond telemedicine itself.
“When we came on board and till today, people don’t trust health insurance providers and are not trusting that we can provide healthcare at a cheaper price between N400-N500 monthly.
“That’s a challenge. So building trust is important. I am also working with the right partner to ensure the quality is of high level and building a network that is strong and big enough to cover the country,” he said.
Interventions through Healthcare Apps
The CEO Wellahealth spoke on the development of relatable artificial intelligence applications that would redirect patients to nearby registered pharmacies and Primary Health Centres (PHCs) for healthcare services.
“Regarding Artificial Intelligence applications to attend to patients, I think that’s a great innovation. It is some of the work we are doing using pharmacies and PHCs to provide care for common conditions.
“In the context of losing a lot of our medical professionals, we have to embrace task-shifting and task-sharing which is where lower-skilled healthcare workers can provide a level of care that is commensurate to what a higher-skilled professional like a doctor will provide.
“The only way to do that is by using technology and artificial intelligence, so that at the PHC level, we can support workers with technology to provide patients with great care.
“It’s not going to solve all the problems, but can fill a gap when properly intensified and built upon, we can start to cover significant gaps as regards brain drain,” he said.
In his view, seizing the licence of medical students as recently proposed by a member of the National Assembly to stop ‘Japa,’ is not the way to go.
Rather, the government should focus on improving funding for the health sector to change the narrative and welfare of healthcare providers.
In the same vein, Neto, expressed worry that the budget proposal of five per cent to the health sector despite brain drain was totally below the 2001 Abuja Declaration.
Neto, who recently won the African Business Heros Award (ABH) explained: “I think doctors in the diaspora seeing the kind of impact they can have in Nigeria and what we are doing should be encouraged to return to Nigeria. If not physically all the time but at least periodically and also doing things via telemedicine. I think the story we are telling should inspire more people to come back.”
Fintech Startup Wins N20m Nubia Capital Seed Fund
A digital platform providing financial services to micro-businesses in remote locations, Regxta, recently won N20 million Nubia Capital pre-seed investment.
Regxta, clinched the seed money at the Global Tech Africa pitch competition that was held in Lagos.
Co-founder of Nubia Capital, Mr. Davidson Oturu, together with Nela Duke-Ekpenyong, also from another investment firm, Ingressive Capital, served as judges to eight startups who qualified out of 28 that showed up for the competition. While also delivering a master class on venture capital investment, he took the startups on different processes of investment.
On what inspired the investment, Oturu said: “Nubia Capital invests in tech-based startups across Africa. And I’m a Nigerian, so Nigeria is the best place that we would go to.
“And, because most of these start-ups don’t have access to venture capitalists like myself when you have this kind of gathering where people come from all over to be a part of this programme, it’s good to give them the opportunity and the access to be able to get start-up capital. So that’s why we decided to do that.” Oturu added.
On the criteria for the selection, he explained: “We looked at the creativity, the innovation, the technology that is disrupting that space, as well as the traction, how fast the person’s business will grow. Are they making profit already? And if we give them this money, how much further is it going to take them?”
The Co-Founder and CEO of Regxta, Rukayat Bello, said the inspiration for Regxta stems from her personal experience.
She said: “My mother, a micro-business owner, faced challenges in accessing financial services.
“This technology platform offers a comprehensive suite of digital financial solutions tailored to the needs of micro-businesses in remote locations. The target customers are the low income earners in rural and semi urban communities in Africa.”
Instagram Announces New Tools
Instagram has announced new and improved editing tools to help creators and users better express their creativity on the app. The new tools include a number of improvements to reels and exciting new updates for feed photos, carousels and stories, that make it easier to create directly within the Instagram app. For reels, enhanced video editing tools help users express creativity and tell the story they want to, all within the app.
In feed, new filters for photos and carousels will explore different tones and moods for posts. In addition to the editing tools, Instagram has also built new tools to help creators better understand their performance.
Full suite of updates include – Reels editing updates, rolling out new fonts to level-up text on reels, and updating editing individual clips with the ability to zoom/crop/rotate; undo and redo edits; and 10 new text-to-speech voices; Audio updates, the ability to add clips with audio from movies, TV shows or your own created audio to your reels from our new media clip hub; New feed photo filters, brand-new photo filters for feed posts and carousels; Performance insights for creators, performance with a new metric, Reels Replays; Custom Stickers, making Reels or Stories stand out by turning part of any photo or video into a custom sticker.
Maida Calls for Competition in Telcom Sector
The Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the Nigeria Communications Commission, Dr. Aminu Maida, has said competition was key to the healthy growth of the telecoms sector.
Receiving a delegation of management of Airtel Networks Limited in Abuja, recently, Maida said the Commission would give closer attention to managing the competition in the industry.
“We are more inclined to promote competition by creating a level-playing ground for all our licensees,” he said.
The NCC boss explained that the Commission was looking at all sides of the issue on competition in the sector.
“Indeed, the rising cost of business is affecting every sector. We are also looking at a win-win regulatory approach, but we need to be careful to avoid over-regulation, as over-regulation is inimical to competition in the industry,” he added.
“The NCC has recently undertaken the review of all categories of licences, both class and individual, with a view to ensuring that our licensees are still able to work well within their capital and operating expenditure (COPEX),” he said.
In the same vein, Maida during the visit by the Airtel delegation said, in line with regulatory approach, the Commission considers it critical to have a win-win strategies and regulatory framework in place to ensure sustainability of the telecom industry.
“It’s critical for the NCC and telcos to develop win-win strategies for the Nigerian telecom industry so that everybody gets value. The Minister has a blueprint, the President has the Renewed Hope Agenda, and they need to achieve it while telcos need to deliver value to the customers,” he said.
The Airtel Network delegation was led by the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Carl Cruz, who congratulated the EVC for his appointment by the President and confirmation by the Senate.
