Tag Archives: Health

Nigeria’s Helium Health launches health tech in Kenya

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Helium Health, West Africa’s leading provider of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and Hospital Management Information (HMI) Systems, has announced the debut of its entire array of products and services in Kenya for the first time.

Helium Health, in collaboration with three local providers, Philips Healthcare Technologies, Carepay, and Savannah Informatics, will integrate new services, including an EMR, to serve the whole East African market.

“We’ve been preparing to enter Kenya’s burgeoning health tech industry since last year, so we’re really thrilled to be getting started in 2021, already collaborating with three new local partners to assist increase efficiency and deliver better patient care. We feel there is a significant opportunity to use cutting-edge technology to enhance the way healthcare data is collected and managed across Africa, therefore collaborating with like-minded healthcare providers and institutions in Kenya is a good fit for us,” said Tito Ovia, co-founder of Helium Health.

“We are convinced that we can play a big role in aiding both Kenya’s public and commercial healthcare sectors,” said Jean Kyula, Country Manager for Helium Health Kenya and formerly a National Health Service (NHS) doctor in the UK. “We’re ecstatic to announce that we’ve opened for business in Nairobi, where we’re already cooperating with three new partners and expanding into Uganda and Liberia. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical role of technology in healthcare, as well as the need to continue developing better systems, more remote access solutions, and improving efficiencies in our healthcare sector, so we look forward to working with more partners, doctors, hospitals, and clinics as we move forward,” she added.

Helium Health successfully concluded a US$10 million Series A investment round in May 2020 (the highest fundraise of any SaaS healthcare company in Africa) to scale and grow the business in both existing and new countries, increasing its reach across East, North, and Francophone West Africa. Helium Health has previously worked with clinics in Uganda and Liberia, enrolling 90-plus users in early 2021, and is now expanding its services to Nairobi.

Helium Health provides a comprehensive array of solutions that span the whole healthcare value chain, from electronic medical records (EMR) and hospital management information (HMI) systems to credit and telemedicine. Helium Health’s technology is currently used by over 300 healthcare providers and 5,000 health professionals in Nigeria, Senegal, and Ghana, allowing healthcare facilities to easily accept payments and issue invoices, access quick funding, and hold televisits with their patients, making it easier for patients to get diagnosed from the comfort of their own homes.

Helium Health was awarded the IFC IT Emerge award in 2020, which connects creative health tech entrepreneurs with premier healthcare providers in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda to launch pilot initiatives and form long-term relationships. Helium Health’s technology will be tested in the East African market.

Global investors are planning to plug Nigeria’s $82 billion health deficit

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In Africa’s largest country, the coronavirus pandemic has sharpened the spotlight on a health-care investment deficit and international investors are attempting to fill the gap.

African health-care assets had started to build concern more widely, long before the pandemic. In November 2019, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation joined with the Investment Fund for Health in Africa-II (IFHA-II) to form a $115 million purchase platform for healthcare provider providers in the east and south of the continent.

After the advent of the pandemic, 100 billion naira ($254.6 million) have been released by the Nigerian government in state credit facilities for healthcare, from pharmaceutical firms and suppliers of drugs to service providers, which has evidently sparked greater demand from private investors. A further 50 billion naira is supplied by the Bank of Business, a Nigerian infrastructure finance agency.

“The construction of world-class healthcare facilities across Africa, but particularly in Nigeria, is a very compelling opportunity,” said Hafeez Giwa, managing partner at HC Capital Properties, which has started to invest in health-care assets in Nigeria.

Another potential was outlined by Tosin Runsewe, CEO of healthcare investment company AfyACare Nigeria: mandatory health benefits for federal workers would decrease insurance premiums and the amount of healthcare costs covered could increase to between 20 percent and 30 percent by 2030.

The Knight Frank study emphasised that, as it is, about 72 percent of household health care spending is out-of-pocket, relative to the sub-Saharan average of 35 percent, and just 5 percent of health care is provided by insurance.

Runsewe said, “The cost of this treatment could be met by a health insurance premium of just around 20,000 Naira ($50) per year, half of the current average cost, if we were able to reach a critical mass of 40 million to 60 million Nigerians covered by healthcare.”

“In private primary health centres, there are a number of ways for investors to provide coverage at an affordable cost.”

Due to both “extreme need” and government policies that have made it easier to grow high-quality assets that provide affordable care, Giwa said HC Capital Properties was investing in Nigeria. He indicated that these prospects are actually being pursued by two forms of investors.

Giwa said, “In the one hand, there are local foreign investors and local pension funds who, in the case of Nigeria, are investors in Naira and have no currency risk concerns.” “On the other hand, companies and institutions are intrigued about the possibility of offering high-quality healthcare to Nigerians with lower and middle incomes.”

He believes the pandemic to have led to a “permanent change in thinking” that would bring more emphasis on better health care at home. According to a recent PwC survey, Nigeria currently loses up to $1 billion per year to outbound health tourism among wealthy Nigerians due to insufficient domestic access.

Children with diabetes can have a bright future

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With good blood sugar control and the use of modern technology, patients nowadays don’t have to have overly rigid lifestyles in order to live long, healthy lives without complications.

With proper monitoring and management, children with diabetes can live long and healthy lives, a diabetes expert says.

“Although there is no cure at this time, treatment options have significantly improved over the years,” said Dr Jason Klein, a paediatric endocrinologist and head of the Paediatric Diabetes Programme at NYU Lutheran Medical Centre in New York City.

“With insulin pens, pumps and modern devices that allow more precise and continuous day and night monitoring of blood sugar levels, we can make small adjustments in the dosage of insulin to prevent sugar levels from rising or dropping too fast. Excellent glucose control gives patients and their families peace of mind,” Klein explained in a university news release.

“Regardless of the type of diabetes [type 1 or type 2] a patient may have, education of the patient and the family is extremely important,” he said.

When children are diagnosed with diabetes, parents often fear the worst, he noted.

“We begin with listening to what the families and patients know about diabetes, since many of their fears are based on old or incorrect information,” Klein said.

“With good blood sugar control and use of modern treatments and technologies, patients today do not have to have overly rigid lifestyles in order to live long, healthy lives free of complications,” he said.