Three years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed health systems across Africa and the rest of the world with high numbers of patients and sudden increases in equipment and consumables needs. The pandemic stretched the capacity of both hospital infrastructure and healthcare workers who faced the challenge of attending to the increased patient numbers while maintaining COVID-19 safety protocols.
In Zimbabwe, doctors in private practice adapted by using information technology to perform remote consultations, sending electronic copies of prescriptions to their clients. Many pharmacies adopted online delivery services that filled these electronic prescriptions for patients across the country. These changes did not come about easily as both patients and health service providers faced challenges with health insurance and medical aid companies that were initially reluctant to pay for teleconsultations, citing the lack of an appropriate regulatory framework for e-health services in Zimbabwe. After some dialogue between the association of doctors and the medical aid companies, a resolution was reached for these services to be paid for by the medical aid companies so as not the leave patients stranded and unable to access telemedicine options whenever the circumstances did not allow them physically visit their clinicians. This saved a lot of patients from paying ‘out of pocket’ fees during a time when people where frequently seeking medical assistance because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Health regulatory authorities also began to adopt technology in order to minimize human movement and human contact. Of note are the Pharmacist Council of Zimbabwe (PCZ) and the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe (MCAZ): PCZ adopted the online application and renewal of pharmacist’s practicing certificates while MCAZ digitized nearly all of its services, from applications for pharmacist dispensing licenses and pharmacy premises licenses to applications for the importation of bulk medicines. They dedicated an entire web-based platform to online services that had previously been paper-based. Migration to digital platforms may have already been in the pipeline for some of these services, but the COVID-19 pandemic certainly accelerated the process.
Another regulatory body that played a role in innovation in general, digital health included, is the Post and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) through their hackathons. Among other digital innovations, the POTRAZ Hackathon awarded The Medical Information System (MIS) a ZWL 4 000 000.00 grant in 2021. Both POTRAZ Hackathons were held in commemoration of POTRAZ’s 20 anniversary, under the theme ‘#POTRAZ@20Challenge’. The first hackathon, which ran from 27 September 2021 to 1 October 2021, focused on COVID-19. The hackathon aimed at proffering sustainable solutions that make use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) to mitigate pandemic-related disruptions to different human endeavors in the health, education, agriculture, industry and commercial sectors. The second hackathon, which ran from 4 to 8 October 2021, was aimed at solving the problem of low average agricultural yields in the country. The grants awarded to the winners were issued by POTRAZ.
The Medical Information System (MIS) is a WhatsApp platform that allows patients to search for medical service providers, get information about availability of medicines from pharmacies in Zimbabwe, compare quotations, and order medicine deliveries. The MIS is run by Dr Dudzayi Mureyi and her team. She founded this project in an effort to alleviate the difficulties, of medicine shortages and lack of information on where to find available medicines, face by many patients seeking medical treatment in Zimbabwe. She reports that her grandmother’s terminal illness in 2015 is what opened her eyes to such difficulties and from then onwards she committed herself to making a difference by changing how patients and access to medicines as well as information on the availability of medicines within their communities. The MIS became a game changer in how patients accessed prescription medicines, especially rare medicines. Patients can now receive information about the availability of drugs without having to physically visit the pharmacies as well as order deliveries from those pharmacies through the MIS. This was very useful, especially during lockdown episodes.
The Government of Zimbabwe also recognized the need to revisit the national digital health strategy. In October 2020, The National Digital Health Strategy for 2021 to 2025 was launched. The purpose of the strategy was to identify areas the government needed to work on in order to create a conducive environment for digital health to thrive in Zimbabwe. Some of these areas include;
- Ensuring connectivity of all health facilities in the country.
- Formulating a governance and leadership framework for digital health in Zimbabwe.
- Nurturing and supporting research and innovation in the digital health spaces in Zimbabwe.
- Creating reliable investment and funding mechanisms for digital health in Zimbabwe.
- Developing a skilled workforce for the support and implementation of digital health.
Though a lot of the innovations and changes mentioned above became more apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic, they would not have been possible to achieve were it not for the foundation laid down by companies that would later on play a role in the acceleration of digital health innovations.
Significant telecoms giants emerged from Africa, Zimbabwe in particular at the wake of the 4th industrial revolution. Econet Wireless emerged over the course of the 1990s from and went on to become a globally significant corporation, giving birth to subsidiary companies such as Liquid Telecommunications which has now rebranded to Liquid Intelligent Technologies. These among other companies have contributed to high mobile and internet penetration in Zimbabwe and other African countries.
Many sectors in Zimbabwe have jumped on to the 4th industrial revolution thanks to those who paved the way and lifted the gates of innovation and entrepreneurship particularly in information technology. Following the emergence of mobile money in 2007, Zimbabwean banks incorporated mobile money into their regulations and integrated it into their online banking and credit systems. A significant portion of retailers also embraced online shopping as well as ordering deliveries via the telephone. That being said, a few sectors had not fully embraced the changes of the times. The COVID-19 pandemic goaded them on in the ‘right’ direction.
Many efforts are now being put into e-health. Such initiatives are necessary to keep our health sector running efficiently. It can never be a single entity’s job. There’s a need for e joint efforts from both the private and public sectors. The public sector has paved the way by revisiting the digital health strategy. Private entities such as Liquid Intelligent Technologies (LIT) have re-engineered themselves in order to contribute to forming the enabling environment for e-health innovations to be fully utilized in Zimbabwe and other African countries.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Future Africa Forum. Future Africa Forum is a pan-African policy think-tank and policy advisory consultancy headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya.
