Imagine Innovation In The Nigerian Healthcare Space

Daniella is a final year biomedical student of Bells University of Technology who asked a question: how can patients with kidney issues be empowered? This question made her start thinking about how a kidney dialysis machine can be made portable. She is trying to create abundance in the healthcare sector.

We imagined a team of engineering students from different universities coming together to design and implement a project in the health sector to make healthcare delivery better and easier.

It was supposed to be her final year project, however, constraints of time and resources may not allow her to pursue it. So, she decided it would be one of the projects that our Medical Device Team would have to handle. She is leading other engineering students to create simple tools and devices for use in Nigerian hospitals.

Innovation starts with people who ask questions as Daniella did. Is it possible to reduce the size of medical machines and also reduce the costs to serve the needs of the Bottom of the Pyramid? Yes, it’s possible if we can just focus on asking the right questions rather than trying to come up with the solution.

Having answers are based on the past while questions stir up our imagination. This was what spurred a serial startup entrepreneur, Dale Fox, who co-founded Tribogenics, a company aiming to build the world’s smallest and cheapest X-ray machine. Instead of a big machine that takes up space, costs more, and consumes energy, they are coming up with one that costs less than $1, is half the size of a thumb drive, and consumes less energy.

Dale Fox said,

“Imagine an entire radiological suite in a briefcase: something powered with batteries or solar, easily transportable, and capable of diagnosing anything from a broken arm to an abdominal obstruction. It will bring a whole new level of care to field medicine and the developing world.”

The price of petrol and diesel for power generators is increasing. The money saved from the introduction of a clean energy system can be channeled to another part of the hospital. The use of petrol and diesel increases the emission of carbon 4 oxides into the atmosphere contributing to climate change. While Daniella and her medical device team members are working on new smaller devices, the clean energy team will be looking at how to power those devices so everyone can use them at home and carry them with them.

Our energy team will conduct an energy resource audit and design a clean energy system that reduces the carbon footprint of the hospital. The waste management team will also design a waste management system that will greatly reduce, ensure reuse, and transform health waste in line with the circular economy.

Wait Time Reduction

Can you imagine patients getting to the hospital and not taking long to see the medical doctor? This will be hard for some people in the developing countries to imagine and see as a reality. However, it can be possible. All it takes is for hospitals to have an appointment system wherever each patient has to fill.

That way a doctor knows the exact number of patients he will be seeing today. Patients can use self-service platforms provided to diagnose the ailments they are experiencing and prescribe drugs. This is how to democratize healthcare.

Imagine medical devices that can take one's blood sample, test, and then send the results to an AI system that has been coded with the expertise of a medical doctor who then analyzes and makes suggestions on what to do. Elon Musk said, we are getting to a place where AI will become more intelligent than humans. And it's true.

“We will have something that is, for the first time, smarter than the smartest human.” Elon Musk

AI will be the best way to serve the 4 billion people who are at the bottom of the pyramid. They will be able to access healthcare in the comfort of their home and only see medical doctors when it is very necessary.

While our medical device team is working on designing portable medical devices thereby empowering patients, our emergency response team will be working on an AI platform that integrates these devices and provides healthcare for the mass of humans who may not have access to healthcare.

Daniella may end up having her dream come true: reducing the size of medical devices and making them portable.

Empowering First Responders At Accident Scenes

When you are at the scene of an accident, you will pity the victims. Most first responders are ignorant about how to handle and manage accident victims before they are attended to by medical professionals. The way they are picked up and placed in vehicles that convey them to the hospitals could be a major cause of spinal cord injury, internal bleeding, and even death.

We are imagining a system where first responders will be equipped with the knowledge and expertise of medical professionals. They understand how to handle accident victims with care, stabilize them, and get them to the hospital. Our medical device teams will work on mobile stretchers with oxygen masks and low-tech ambulances that can stabilize accident victims.

In most cases, the first hospital may not be able to handle the case so they refer the victim to another hospital. In the process, more damage gets done. Most patients lose blood and become unconscious. No time should be spared. Emergency patients are meant to be attended to in time.

We are imagining a system that allows first responders to contact hospitals within the vicinity to know which one is able to serve the victims where the doctor is on the ground. Vital signs of patients can then be forwarded to the hospitals in real-time in preparation for their arrival. Medical professionals can also video the patient through video means.

Some shared this experience:

“I recently came across a tweet from a young man whose father had suffered a stroke yet couldn’t be admitted into the teaching hospital he first presented to as they didn’t have any beds. The family traversed the busy city of Lagos with their sick father to find a hospital with a bed.”

The time gap between finding a hospital can be costly. When first responders are empowered through technology they can make the right decisions and take the right actions that will save lives. All lives matter.

Hospital With Hospitality Touch

The word hospital comes from the Latin word “hospes” which means to provide a safe place to sleep, which is associated with shelter and friendliness. However, in most hospitals, nurses and staff most times forget that hospitality is a major part of recovery.

A hospital is not just about diagnoses, prescriptions, and recovery but also about care. Everyone is involved in making the patient feel at home. The hospital should be a home outside a home. How patients feel, how they are looked after, and the attention they are given impact their recovery and rehabilitation. We all respond positively when we feel cared for.

We imagine a hospital that acts more like a family; the hospital culture treats the nurses, medical doctors, and staff with respect. Patient experience is enhanced when the culture is human-centered. Our Patient Experience team will work with the hospital management to design a human-centered culture and exceptional experience for patients.

To feel cared for, the culture and the experience have to feel concerned for people as humans, give them attention by listening to them, respond to them with respect, and empathize with them. The way the staff are treated will very much determine how they treat their patients. Culture is a big part of the patient experience.

Freeing The Medical Professional

Technology is the greatest enabler. It provides a capability that enables medical doctors to do much more than they can ever think of doing as we free them from mundane work to focus on the most important work.

A medical doctor slumped in the church and died after he had worked non-stop for 72 hours. Is that preventable? Of course, it is. Many of the tasks he is doing could have been systemized and technology would have taken over. Artificial Intelligence (AI) could have relieved him.

When the medical doctor is tired or fatigued and overwhelmed, it could lead to wrong diagnoses and prescription which may likely results in damage to tissues and death. Technology has the power to give doctors freedom and enable them to take some rest. Technology acts based on facts and is not moved by emotions and pain.

I developed an expert system for diagnosing electrical faults in a distribution system. ?While on the project I got to understand that AI is simply mirroring the knowledge of an expert and how an expert goes about solving problems. In the year 2020, I met with some medical students with the aim of creating a diagnostic AI system that mirrors how doctors diagnose certain diseases.

As we were about to start, a total lockdown of the country was announced and we had to suspend. It was supposed to be an experiment to see how that was going to work. We were to look at common ailments like malaria, cholera, and others. We submitted a proposal to develop a malaria diagnostic system for Northern Nigeria, most especially as it affects children under 6 years of age.

What are you imagining for healthcare in Africa? Join us in imagining better healthcare in Nigeria and Africa.

If you are as excited as we are about this project and want to be part, you can contact us at [email protected], or visit our website to learn about us www.ewb.org.ng. You can also make donations to enable students to execute this project at GTBank Engineers Without Borders Assoc 0051937347

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