In late 2019, reach52 partnered with Gilead Sciences and the Philippines Department of Health to launch comprehensive hepatitis B (HBV) services for rural populations in the Philippines. We passionately support the global drive to find the ‘missing millions’… the 290 million undiagnosed people living with viral hepatitis… and provide them the treatment they need. This World Hepatitis Day, we wanted to update on the action we are taking in the Philippines to make this happen.

HBV represents a major health burden for the Philippines, which has among the highest prevalence in the world.  However, due to persistent barriers only a fraction of cases are diagnosed, and even fewer access the essential life-saving treatments they need. By harnessing reach52’s health system services, our programme is focused on addressing the enormous challenges in delivering care to the estimated 1 in 10 Filipinos living with hepatitis B virus.

This end-to-end solution consists of health worker upskilling, community awareness (including overcoming HBV stigma), screening, diagnostics, and enhanced pathways to care for positive cases. We started with a knowledge assessment of local health workers to get a better understanding of how they manage post-test counselling, diagnosis, and referrals. As there were many gaps and issues identified, we developed an education and training program with leading hepatologists and the Hepatology Society of the Philippines. Once we had strengthened the local health system, we implemented the awareness and screening/diagnostics programmes in these rural regions, as well as enabling access to the affordable medicines.

All the services are powered by reach52’s award-winning digital health platform and community-based teams in these rural areas. The programme blended public sector (who conducted the screenings and patient counselling), reach52 services (for training, screening events, patient education, and access to diagnostics and treatments) and the private sector (providing specialist hepatitis expertise, funding and treatments).

“The complexity of delivering screening-to-treatment programmes has been enormous, but it is truly humbling to see our innovative public-private partnership approach and service delivery model come to life and deliver a comprehensive, affordable solution to patients that need support most,” said Edward Booty, CEO of reach52.

The Government of Philippines, through the Department of Health (DOH), has been an engaged and enthusiastic partner on this project.  In addition to their central role during the planning phase, the DOH is providing significant investments, including staffing, in-kind, and financial resources.  This includes 10 doctors, 8 med-techs, and the participation of 52 front-line health care workers.

The initial phase of the programme will impact an estimated 11,000 individuals in Cuartero and Pototan municipalities, including community-based screening services for up to 10,000 low-income residents. Health system strengthening will be promoted through the training of 166 community health workers via reach52’s mediconnect platform. As part of this initiative, low-cost anti-viral medicines will be made available to patients via reach52 marketplace and delivered directly into rural regions.

reach52 is partnering with many leading organisations (Insurance, Pharma, MedTech and Consumer Health) to expand access and grow their portfolio into previously unreachable rural markets across South and South East Asia. We’re also a proud member of the World Hepatitis Alliance,

If you’re interested in making an impact with us, we’d love to hear from you.

 

Contact details:

Edward Booty, CEO (edward@reach52.com)

This World Health Day, we didn’t want to just celebrate our Community Nurses & Midwives, we wanted everyone to hear what they need to combat COVID-19 and existing epidemics.

Jazzie, Raissa and Mayflor are just some of the nurses and midwives doing fantastic work on the front line in lower income communities. Through the day, we shared videos from them, highlighting the work they do and the support they really need in practice – not just policy statements.

It’s more important than ever we listen and act on what they say…

We’re thrilled to be announced as the winner in the category of Health Education and Health Promotion at the 5th Commonwealth Digital Health Awards. The awards were hosted by the Commonwealth Centre for Digital Health (www.cwcdh.org) which serves as the central hub of the Commonwealth Digital Health Network. The panel of judges included medical practitioners, regulators, and policymakers.

Helping to eliminate inequity in healthcare but tailoring solutions to communities and end users is key.

Many examples of decentralisation use digital solutions to bring healthcare directly into the hands of consumers. However internet access is not universal. reach52 tackles remote access issues by designing a platform that works offline, powered by a human component to encourage use and empower residents to manage their health conditions.

Why should we look into decentralising healthcare? Benefits include
⛑ Customised care to meet specific needs of communities
⛑ Agile response and rapid mobilisation
⛑ Cost-efficient and targeted engagements
⛑ Fewer inequities as we increase access to healthcare

In order for decentralised healthcare to be successful, it is essential that we design solutions customised to the needs of the end user.

The number of people with diabetes worldwide is expected to reach 643 million by 2030, and 783 million by 2045 – rising most rapidly in low-and-middle income countries (LMICs), where there is stark inequity in access to insulin. This report highlights the urgent actions that companies, governments and their partners can take to provide patients in resource-limited settings with the choice of treatment they deserve. 


These include 


Biocon aims for its biosimilar insulins to reach one in five insulin-dependent people with diabetes globally. To achieve this, they launched their ‘Mission 10 cents’ strategy, committing to offer its human insulins for less than USD 10 cents per day from vials directly sourced from Biocon Biologics by governments in LMICs. 

The programme has been launched in the Philippines, in partnership with reach52, covering programme implementation and logistics required to provide last-mile delivery of insulins at a price aligned to Biocon’s Mission 10 cents. 

Read it here and download the full report for more about the strategies to overcome barriers to access, areas where progress has been made, and opportunities for future action. 

We are excited to announce a new phase in Allied World Healthcare’s (AWH) development, having signed a flagship with a new client and project to expand within the Philippines!

AWH is also working with a number of world-leading health organizations, spanning government and non-profit, insurance companies and a leading pharmaceutical manufacturer.

As part of the initial phase of work, AWH opened its office in Manila with a second office in Western Visayas, and is growing the team to support Philippines activities as well as technology and operational requirements throughout the region. Since launching in the Philippines, AWH has focused on stakeholder engagement including extensive research to identify gaps in health access; designing and improving local service delivery models and platforms, and working with several partner communities to trial innovative new methods for connecting the last-mile to health support.

Initial support for the project has been receptive and very positive, with a number of local and multilateral organisations already engaged and providing inputs to the ongoing design phase of work.

Thrilled to be selected to join the Million Lives Collective (MLC), an initiative that recognises and raises awareness of innovators and social entrepreneurs in #globaldev #millionlives #healthequity

Check it out here 💡 https://lnkd.in/gaXZVupu

Allied World Healthcare is pleased to announce that Curis has won the Singapore nomination for the prestigious United Nations World Summit Awards under the Health & Wellbeing category! Curis will now be representing Singapore for the global World Summit Awards, with results released in December 2018.

The United Nations World Summit Awards (UN-WSA) is an awards system that selects and promotes local digital innovation with high impact on society all over the world. For 15 years, “WSA has become a quality seal for digital content with societal impact in over 180 participating countries”. For this year’s awards, Curis is competing with over 400 digital innovations from all over the world.

Curis is AWH’s core platform an offline-first Android application that is used for the organisation’s grassroots healthcare service delivery. Its first version was an online platform, designed and built in partnership with different global technology companies. However, as AWH is determined to deliver in the remotest parts of the world the platform was redesigned, rebuilt and released. Now, Curis 2.0 runs on low-spec Android devices fully offline, and can be used in disconnected and remote areas. It provides health information, education articles, and community engagement (such as appointments booking and event management). There is a web portal for healthcare leaders and providers to coordinate their service delivery and view data dashboards about their population’s healthcare needs.

Our new UHC 2030 Infographic… 3 areas needing faster action to deliver universal health coverage for all.

The opportunity is there, but we must take it now.

By Ed Booty, reach52 CEO

 

It’s that time of the year when our social feeds and inboxes are full of the latest trend predictions for the year ahead. This is certainly the case in healthcare, an industry experiencing disruption in multiple ways. While I love learning about new trends and ideas, I get even more excited by delivering impact on the ground and translating concepts into action. So, here’s some practical ways to translate three key healthcare trends into action to deliver affordable, accessible healthcare in lower income countries.

 

1-Predictive and preventative models – rethinking precision public health

 

It’s always been obvious that keeping people healthy and well in the first place rather than treating them when they become unhealthy should be the priority. The difference now is we can achieve this with far greater precision and accuracy. By building and applying predictive analytics models to relevant data, we can predict which groups of patients will be most at risk of certain conditions and make earlier interventions to prevent or manage them. For example, in developed systems, the La Fe Health Department in La Valencia used a predictive model to identify the multi-chronic patients with an increased risk of hospitalisation over the next 12 months, delivering a reduction of up to 79% of hospitalisation and emergency room visits1. The application of predictive and preventative healthcare approaches is more nascent in low- and middle-income settings but growing as we saw with the launch of the Rockefeller Foundation’s $100 million Precision Public Health Initiative last year.

It’s essential that predictive and preventative models include quality data from low- and middle-income communities currently outside of care. If the data is only from people who currently access care, the models won’t be applicable to these disadvantaged populations, further increasing health inequity. It’s also wrong to rely on the data analytics alone. This data must incorporate social histories as well as demographics and clinical histories. Preventative models of care must be equally based on insights into the real lives of people within the communities. Using the data we’ve captured through our reach52 access platform, we developed an algorithm to identify community residents in the Philippines at most risk of hypertension. Our Access Managers conducted house to house blood pressure checks over 3 weeks to monitor the blood pressure for ‘at risk’ residents, but also conducted interviews to understand the emotional and financial barriers to adopting healthier lifestyles (e.g. if I feel healthy, I must be healthy). This was a low-cost intervention covering about 10% of the village’s population. Of these, almost 70% completed their personal, home-based interactions with us, and 40% were severely at risk of or diagnosed with hypertension. We also understood medicine needs, helping us source suitable partnerships to fill the gaps in local care delivery.

 

2-Personalised healthcare experiences – a universal necessity

 

‘Consumerisation of healthcare’ is a major trend across developed health systems, with patients as consumers demanding more personalised, convenient and relevant healthcare experiences. Patients are increasingly empowered to self-diagnose, track and manage their health through mobile applications, wearables or even digestibles such as Abilify MyCite’s digital pill.

Whilst the healthcare systems where reach52 works may be less evolved, the personalisation of healthcare experiences is no less important in these low- and middle-income areas. People have to make choices with their time and want to feel valued, so the experience matters. We will only change behaviour (e.g. adopting healthier lifestyles, seeking treatment, staying on treatment) by delivering access to care where, when and how individuals want it. Digital applications (in particular mobile) provide the means to achieve to this. However, just as in developed systems, applications must be designed to address the patient experience in the most relevant and convenient way. A common pitfall is trying to ‘lift and shift’ approaches from developed systems that are just too complex for low- and middle-income settings – simplicity is key.

We launched a new reach52 medicine ordering and delivery service in the Philippines in 2019 in partnership with Novartis Social Business, Zuellig Pharma and MedExpress. We have built into this service, simple mobile reminders for patients to pick up, take and re-order their medicines at the right time. In 2020, we plan to expand our use of personalised digital engagement and chatbots through Facebook Messenger – a platform which already has huge penetration in the communities, and often is the primary form of chat app due to ‘free data’ bundles with most telecoms’ companies.

The logic of personalised and relevant interventions is also staggeringly logical in my view. As we look to the hyper-targeting of ads by Google and Facebook, the notion that standardised, group-based lectures or events will have an impact alone is false. Instead, interventions need to be contextual and relevant to be impactful. So we actively use our granular datasets when developing community health programmes, adapting our programmes for individual villages based on their local needs and engaging residents at an individual level with relevant content (e.g. talking head video clips of doctors). This allows us to create a personal and authoritative visual experience with clear explanations about why a person has been selected, or why they and their broader community are at risk. I am of the personal view that we hold a ‘it won’t happen to me’ ego about our own health, somehow rationalising that we are not the highest risk (especially for silent killer diseases, such as NCDs). Data and personalised messaging can start to help people understand why they are at risk and engage them in essential first steps towards prevention.

 

3-Virtual health – enabling the holy grail of decentralised digital primary care

 

Delivering health care via digital and telecommunication technologies, to both complement or as a substitute for face-to-face interactions, has become an increasing focus for developed health systems. Virtual health includes telehealth activities, virtual and augmented reality, and AI powered virtual assistants such as Sensely’s virtual nurse Molly used by the UK’s National Health System. Intermountain Healthcare have used telehealth for rural areas in the US where there is a lack of specialists. Video-assisted resuscitations for distressed infants in community hospitals reduced neo-natal transfers to level 3 traumas by nearly 30%.2

In rural areas of low and middle-income countries, there is still much work to do to realise the potential of virtual health. Low or no internet connectivity when most telemedicine applications require reliable internet bandwidth is clearly a challenge, so establishing telehealth access points in communities with an acceptable level of connectivity is important. However, often the failure to deliver impact is a failure of planning and engagement. Firstly, there is the failure of the private sector to engage government officials in developing new regulations and protocols to enable effective telemedicine systems, limiting efficiencies. For example, creating prescriptions without a physical consultation isn’t allowed in the Philippines, seriously limiting any potential telemedicine innovations in a country made up of 7,500 islands and severe shortage of health workers in the more rural areas. Secondly, there is the failure of the private sector to engage sceptical healthcare professionals around the benefits of telehealth for them and their patients. In my experience, there is often a reluctance to shift from face-to-face to virtual interactions as the latter isn’t perceived a ‘proper consultation’, affecting confidence in patient outcomes. The evidence for cost savings is there (e.g. it’s estimated if telemedicine replaced 30 to 40% of in-person outpatient consultations, India could save up to $10 billion3). We need to track quality of care outcomes better to drive change and integrate telehealth into healthcare delivery systems. The reliance upon telco’s can also not be understated. Without the reliable infrastructure, a quality service will be impossible for patients and clinicians and remain a barrier to the needed shift in healthcare service delivery.

We also need to think more broadly than telehealth and make the most of emerging technologies such as virtual and augmented reality. There is a much publicised, global shortage of health workers, with an urgent need to re-organise and upskill workforces (especially community health workers, who are often decentralised and more difficult to train) to address the rising prevalence of non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries. One of the great benefits of virtual and augmented reality is its ability to remove barriers of distance. AR/VR enabled scenarios could be used by leading experts to remotely upskill new workers in lower income countries or even bring specialist care to patients through immersive experiences wherever they are on earth.

So, as we kick off an exciting 2020, let’s all commit and work together to translate trends into impact on the ground. 52% of the world still lack essential health services, let’s change this. As Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘If you want to predict the future, create it’.

 

Sources:

1 – https://www.accenture.com/gb-en/success-valencia-la-fe-predictive-health-analytics-models

2 – https://hbr.org/2019/05/telehealth-is-improving-health-care-in-rural-areas

3 – https://www.livemint.com/news/india/telemedicine-could-save-india-4-5-billion-every-year-mckinsey-report-1553843760274.html