Airtel, Medanta Africare unveil online heath portal

Kenyans can now access healthcare services at the touch of a button following the launch of a new M-Health service by Airtel and Medanta Africare (the Nairobi branch of Medanta Hospital headquartered in India).

To access the M-Health service, Airtel customers can dial 1525 on their mobile phones.

This connection links them to a call centre at Medanta Africare in Westlands, Nairobi, which then connects subscribers to various services they may require based on their health needs.

Through the M-Health technology, the public is able to seek medical assistance from doctors at Medanta Africare from 8am to 8pm.

The package also enables them to access homecare services such as physiotherapy and home collection of samples, while nurses can attend to patients from the comfort of their homes.

Since the digital health initiative has embraced telemedicine, it provides Kenyans with an opportunity to seek expert medical opinion and treatment from specialist doctors based at Medanta Hospital in India.

Local doctors will handle various health conditions that suit their expertise then refer cases that require external intervention such as liver and kidney transplants, and complicated heart surgeries to external experts.

“When someone is sick they need critical health care services very fast. And mobile phones can enable them to get medical attention fast,” Airtel Kenya CEO Adil El Youssefi said during yesterday’s launch of the M-Health service at Serena Hotel in Nairobi.

“So we are bringing healthcare services to Kenyans’ fingertips,” he said.

Medanta Africare president and CEO Anil Maini said that through telemedicine they also plan to link rural communities in far flung areas in the country to healthcare services available at their facility in Nairobi as well as in India.

He said that in case patients need to travel abroad for treatment, the hospital will also facilitate logistics for their travelling, treatment and follow up care once they return to Kenya.

Other services that the M-Health service offers at a discount to Airtel customers include radiology, dental consultation and medicines.

The Airtel CEO noted that normal calling rates will apply when customers use or seek to make use of the M-Health platform.

“It will just be like a normal call that subscribers usually make.”

The initiative is leveraging on the growing number of Kenyans currently using mobile phones, about 80 per cent of the population, to address healthcare service and delivery gaps that have been ailing the country’s health sector.