Safaricom PLC has today announced a new venture in the health sector, Afya Moja. The company will be partnering with the Nakuru County Government to pilot the program which will see over 100,000 people in the country be part of the integrated electronics medical records program.

According to Safaricom, Afya Moja is a simple mobile-based Digital Health Passport that receives and securely stores patient information. With the platform, users can access a copy of their health information, and share it with trusted healthcare providers.

So, a doctor can for example, upon receiving consent from a user, have access to their medical background, helping them effectively handle whatever situation is at hand.

The platform has been created by a consortium of partners including Safaricom PLC, Savannah Informatics Limited and IntelliSOFT Consulting Limited. Safaricom says they will provide the technology platform which will enable access through mobile phones.

The company has promised to bring the Afya Moja Program to different Counties in the coming months leading up to a full adoption countrywide.

“What we aim to do through Afya Moja, is to make patient medical records portable so that patients and healthcare workers can access them any time they need them. We will be focusing on diabetes patients during the initial stages of this pilot as we move on to other patients with other chronic diseases”, said Steve Chege, Chief Corporate Affairs, Safaricom.

An initial eight hospitals will benefit from this partnership including:

PGH Nakuru Level 5 Hospital,
Naivasha Sub County Hospital,
Molo Sub County Hospital and
Keringet Sub County Hospital
Soin-Mogotio Sub County Hospital,
Kiptangwany Health Centre,
Mirugi Kariuki Sub County Hospital and
Gilgil Health Centre.

“Mobile as an enabler for health is still largely untapped. Challenges with patient identification remain across the ecosystem with difficulty linking patients to information. Despite increased digitization of patient information, interoperability of systems is very difficult to achieve so information remains siloed sometimes even within the same facility. Afya Moja aims to address this challenge,” Said Steven Wanyee, Director of Biomedical Informatics, IntelliSOFT Consulting Limited.

Last year Safaricom was included in the 2020 Fortune Change the World List for its role in transforming how people in Kenya are paying for and accessing healthcare through M-TIBA which is a partnership with CarePay and PharmAccess

M-TIBA which has over 4 million users enables people to save, send, receive and pay for medical treatment through a mobile health wallet on their phone. The solution has previously won the shared value category at the 2017 Loeries Awards and received the FT/IFC Transformational Business Award in Sustainable Development.