Many of them must travel long distances to major towns to be seen by doctors, even when they are in very critical conditions.

While there are not enough specialists in rural areas to serve these patients, there are many specialists in urban areas or even abroad who would be willing to spend a few additional hours to help people in need of urgent medical attention.

During his stay in America, for instance, Badruddin Pitter, an entrepreneur, often encountered specialists who wanted to provide their services to underserved communities around the world.

They just didn’t know how to go about this.

Therefore, leveraging his background in business and technology, Pitter undertook to develop a platform that would grant patients access to specialists regardless of where they were.

The platform, dubbed CallCare24, would also target patients that needed home care attention, such as those with acute and cardiac conditions, as well as those who are identified as CHF class II patients who require to be monitored continuously.

“CallCare24 has two main features, a Tele Health solution which allows patients to schedule walk-in or virtual appointments as well as connect through video calls, and a Remote Patient Monitoring feature, which allows the health care providers to engage, and monitor patients remotely, thus reducing readmissions into the hospital post discharge,” noted Pitter.

The platform rides on artificial intelligence to facilitate monitoring of patients through telemedical devices such as BP monitoring devices, weighing scales, blood sugars, EKGs, pulses, etc., as well as to continuously sensitize patients about their condition.

It has an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system for medical providers to collect electronic health and medical data from patient visits, e-prescribe, eLab orders, and submit super bills.

Patients can view charts, e-prescriptions, lab orders, and reports on the mobile app and can print or share them as required.

“If a user would like to get a second opinion from say doctors based outside of their country, they can use the platform to check how much the specialist costs, share medical reports with them, schedule the appointments and make arrangements for travel and stay, if need be,” noted Pitter.

The platform is currently present in the USA, where they have onboarded more than 20 hospitals and 16000 patients; Saudi Arabia; India, where they have onboarded more than 40 hospitals with various specialists; and they just recently, in July this year, launched in Kenya.

While they are happy with the rapid progress they have made, having only been in operations for about two years, Pitter says accommodating the unique needs of every market has not been easy.

While they would like for the platform to work seamlessly across the various markets, they just have to build different workflows for each market.

“The USA market is primarily covered by insurances from the private sector and government, so our portal accommodates insurance pre-authorization prior to visits. Kenya and Saudi Arabia markets have less insurance penetration and majority of the patients are treated in government hospitals or paid directly by patients. The Indian market has a hybrid approach,” noted Pitter.

Access to reliable internet connectivity in some of the areas they seek to serve is also a challenge, and they encourage the establishment of free WIFI hubs by the government to reduce the data usage cost for patients.

They hope to partner with the government as well as other private sector stakeholders to set up satellite clinics at various rural villages for appointment visits, mobile labs that can deliver medicines and collect blood samples for lab tests, as well as patient education camps to educate on the various diseases and medications available.

By the end of 2023, they also hope to have added some new services to the platform, including remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM), remote respiratory monitoring (RRM), remote ventilation monitoring (RVM), and wellness care.

“Patients will be at home and still be treated for major conditions such as Dialysis, Diabetic Care, Cardiac Care, Respiratory care, among others,” noted Pitter.

The SaaS-based cloud application can be accessed by both patients and doctors and clinics through web portals and mobile apps.