Tele-Medicine: Coming To Kenya
I was talking to a doctor yesterday and she was telling me about this specialized hospital that they are in the process of building. They’ve already received a $10 million dollar grant from the African Development Bank and they’re looking to raise an additional 1.2 billion Ksh (which I think they’ll be able do).
Anyway, the crux of the conversation was about the need to start fusing technology and medicine in Kenya. So, basically, what this doctor told me was that Kenya does not have the specialized machines that can detect small tumors in patients. Therefore, if they do get a patient who they suspect may have small, hidden tumors somewhere, the only alternative currently, is to refer the patient to a hospital outside the country. If the patient is wealthy, they’ll send them to the UK. If there’s less money, they’ll refer them to a hospital in either India or South Africa.
However, they’ve realized that they no longer need to send patients out of the country in this internet age. They could take x-rays or scans with the machines they currently have and email over those same x-rays to the UK if they think a patient might have smaller tumors.
In order to set-up this specialized hospital they are going to need to hire Kenyans who have extensive IT experience. They do not want to hire or deal with foreigners (they want young Kenyans from the diaspora who’ll be willing to move back and run their IT department). Essentially, Kenya is now the major country for specialized care in East and Central Africa. She said she gets a lot of patients from the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda who are all looking for specialized care that they cannot receive in their home countries. Although Kenya has the specialists to treat these people, they don’t have the machines (the hospitals cannot afford them & neither can most doctors in private practice).
So, once this under-sea cable is installed, all that the Kenyan doctors will need is the technology that will allow them to transmit scans over to doctors in the U.S. or the UK {where they have these machines} and then have the results sent back to them in Kenya. No more sending patients out of the country.
I’ll be sending me more information about this project as they get ready to start recruiting people with IT experience.
Has anyone thought about this before and if so, what dilemma’s challenges do you think you’ll face?
i love it when i hear of people in kenya doing such serious work (beats the NE casinos!). please keep us posted on developments.
another area that might prove interesting is what they call medical central banking,where we have a central ‘bank’ containing relevant medical info of as many kenyans (east africans) as possible,tracking trends and matching donors.
other projects might include using IT enabled diagnostic support systems that increase the ‘reach’ of medical personnell..
challenges? of course. the lack of a network between hospitals doctors etc or central database means that alot of the work done would be repetitive and inefficeient.
a question; is the GoK putting any of its KRA tax money into the project?
Great stuff “KenyanEntrepreneur” you got here. I have always believed that a paradign shift from traditional way of doing business and approce to socio-economic issues to modernity is the key to success of our ailling economies( think Kenya etc).
In fact, such an undertaking is long overdue. Someone even told me that still buying and sell products ONLINE In Kenya is a nightmare because the Kenyan banks do not accept credit cards.
But I am increasingly alarmed that at this age, not many Kenyan employers think or believe that they can get very competetive professionals, especially in areas of IT trained in Kenya.
Just remember the Safaricom employment saga we saw last time.
Why emphasize that,only Kenyans trained in the diaspora are the best fit?
What happens to a person like me and others whose financial backgrounds may not allow them to get training oversees trainings yet they are willing and ready to learn the ropes in the career?
Oh, my friend just corrected that they need Kenyans trained in the diaspora in addition to the others trained in Kenya. What they dont want are non-Kenyans.
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Ladies & Gentlemen
Greetings from BGS Global Hospital, Bangalore.
I, the undersigned is the Vice President (Operations) and International Business Development., looking after the operations of this hospital and would like to give you a short introduction about our hospital and its facilities..
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It is a 500 bed Tertiary Care and Transplant Hospital.
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About Global Hospital Group
Global Hospital is a Hyderabad based super-specialty corporate hospital founded in the year 1998 focusing Multi-Organ Tansplantation and specialties like Gastroenterology, Cardiology, Nephrology and Urology.
Global Hospitals with its team of highly qualified and experience clinician is a pioneer in the field of Multi-Organ Transplantation.
This hospital is founded by renowned Surgical Gastroenterologist Dr. K.S. Ravindranath M.S., FRCS (Edin), FRCS (Glas) who has worked with several prestigious hospitals like Kings College Hospital and Hammersmith Hospital in the United Kingdom, he is one of the pioneering surgeons in the country in Laproscopic and Hepatobiliary Pancreatic Surgery.
Global Hospital has performed 35 liver transplants including 8 living related transplants. The success rate is comparable to that of any transplant centre in the world.
Milestones Achieved by Global Hospital Group
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Global Hospital is actively working on other exciting areas in Healthcare like stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine, clinical research and drug development, retail healthcare and referral laboratory services.
Global Hospital is in the process of establishing large multi-specialty tertiary care and transplant hospitals at Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata in addition to an expansion plan in Hyderabad.
I would appreciate it, if you could continue with the support and the co-operation which you have kindly bestowed upon me at my new assignment of work.
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With kind regards and looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Yours sincerely,
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Vice President Operations & International Business Development
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