Privedoc app connects patients with doctors all over the world – Lanre
PriveDoc, a medial app founded by Lanre Olaitan chief executive officer of PriveDoc, limited in Nigeria and Medcircuit Limited in the United Kingdom was recently launched and has received a considerable amount of attention, mostly for consultation. In this interview with Anthonia Obokoh, he discusses the sole purpose of the app, the problem it aims to tackle, Nigeria’s healthcare system among others.
What is PriveDoc, all about?
PriveDoc, is about services which puts healthcare in the hands of all Nigerians. So, what we do is to make sure that every Nigerian where ever they are can access medical care via mobile phone. The app enables patients to engage with a doctor at any time, at any day 24/7. You can chat with a doctor or a nurse off in convenience of your room.
As a doctor trained in the United Kingdom and works there, I think it is actually is very important that Nigerians have access to all forms of medical professionals in the world.
We have a problem in Nigeria with the fact that the country has about 4 doctors to 10,000 patients in Nigerians that is the statics of the World Health Organization, which also the lowest amount in the whole world. So I think improving access means is not just for only doctors but also to everyone,
The system is meant for Nigerian people, but we have Nigeria doctor and also UK doctor on the system, the patients can choose who to speak. So we just want to make the world a smaller place by been able to connect patients to any doctors they want in the world.
Is the app powered by artificial intelligence?
The Medcircuit is powered by artificial intelligence which is supposed to the powered by the PriveDoc, system but at the moment we are just connecting doctors to patients and the patients to the doctor. In the future what we plan to do in Nigeria is to actually introduce the Medcircuit system which is high to help patients with diagnosis.
PriveDoc, is easy to access, as a user you can just log to www.privedoc.com, it takes about 20 seconds to register and once you are registered you can book appointment with doctors, quite instantly.
Also we want to make sure that all our doctors can work from anywhere they are, even at the weekend because it is a mobile technology.so they are work conveniently and it won’t conflict with their own interest and they operate full time.
What kind of investment went into developing the app?
So into the PriveDoc system, we invest about N250million into the business which includes the infrastructure, testing, the soft wares and everything that supports it. It is a large project that we are doing and it taken a chuck of huge investment
What is the number of doctors on the system?
We have about 53 Nigerian doctors and that is across the country, in Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna, Jos, Imo and other states. We also have 20 doctors from the United Kingdom and 10 doctors from America.
What we have done is that before we get any doctors in our system, just like I said there are 53 doctors from Nigeria. We look at their experience, licenses, medical certificates, we made some confirmation from Abuja to be sure that they are certified in order to avoid quackery.
So once they passed that stage, we invite them for interview so that they will have the right mind of attitude to treat patients, which is for Nigeria doctors.
But for the other doctors aboard, it is slightly different. If any doctor wants to apply, we just search online and we could see all these details on their specialization, if they have any problem in the past or have been bared or have any investigation against them. So essentially, all the doctors in the PriveDoc system are very certified and good to work with.
Charging system
On the bill system, one thing is that we made it affordable so as most Nigerians can afford. As times go on, we need to plan with the fact that if we see that the market goes further, then we will make shift.
But at the moment it cost about N200.00 to chat with a doctor as long as you need till the problem is resolved and patient is given advised and been followed up by the doctor.
And to video call a doctor cost N1000.00, it is more affordable and easier rather than transporting and waiting on the long queue in the hospital.
Impact to Nigeria healthcare delivery system
One of the impacts of this system is to help curb self-medication and reduce the waiting time of patents in the hospitals. People do self-medicating a lot, what I mean is that people try to diagnose and treat themselves at the same time when they do not know what is wrong with them. The problem with that is most at time, you might better but might not actually solve the problem.
And I think if you actually have the access to speak to doctor, you might not self – medicate and you will do the right things for yourself. Ones we are able to use this app to impact of avoiding self-medication, in that case people will have access to care and the whole population might get healthier and we have less self –medication.
And also the need of this app is to help the healthcare delivery system in Nigeria to reduce the demand in the hospitals especially the government facilities. Many Nigerians travel so far across states to receive treatments, the long queues and crowd, this has really affected the healthcare access of this country.
So what we are doing is to help strategize the point to reduce long queue and make access to care easier by using the mobile app to get consultation.
However, for Nigeria health sector to have a wide gap that cannot have healthcare coverage, we have to digitize the healthcare system. We cannot continue to have situations whereby a patient comes in and we keep searching for records.
The Nigeria healthcare system should to be a case where you could use a patients name and date of birth to access their information’s. Once Nigeria can get to that level, I think it will be easier for the system and people can access care without been delayed in the hospitals which is quicker and better, with that we will be able to reach the population demands.
Also the country need to embrace innovation in the healthcare system and try to resolve some of the problems we have because they are not going to go away if they are not solved.
The countries population is growing massively; the World Bank has said that Nigeria will be the most populated country in the world by 2050, which is more than America, Russia. I think the country really needs to meets its demands in the healthcare system.