MobileContent pitch CARE 247 at ITU Telecom World
Ghana’s leading mobile value added service (VAS) provider, MobileContent.com is generating investor interest with their CARE 247 digital health service solution at the ongoing ITU Telecom World 2017 in Busan, South Korea.
MobileContent is part of the Wireless Application Service Providers Association of Ghana (WASPAG) team that joined team-Ghana to Busan to showcase the country’s strides in ICT and attract investors.
Other members of team, led by Deputy Communications Minister Nenyi George Kojo Andah include the National Communications Authority (NCA), Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC), National Information Technology Agency (NITA), GCNet, Subah Ghana and the Bank of Ghana.
General Manager of MobileContent, Conrad Nyuur told Adom News after the pitch that he was happy about the interest in the Health 247 solution because it was designed to facilitate Ghana’s achievement of the UN MDGs on health and nutrition.
He observed that one key health factor that runs through all of the MDGs was nutrition – how people could get the right and sufficient nutrients and gain the strength, health and power to go about their daily lives.
Conrad Nyuur said Care 247 is therefore designed to ensure access to proper nutritional and other health information 24/7 with the view to helping people live a healthy lifestyle and contribute to national development.
He noted that Ghana’s health and nutrition statistics are not encouraging and government’s spending on capital intensive interventions such as building hospitals and training health professional is not solving the problem faster enough because currently the doctor to patient ratio still stands at one doctor to 10,000 patients.
This, he said, calls for some innovative approach to health delivery and spread of information on proper nutrition, and that was what informed the development of Care 247 on the mobile platform to reach more people faster with the needed information, assistance and support to live a healthy lifestyle.
The MobileContent GM noted that with mobile penetration of 127 per cent and data penetration of over 70 per cent, Ghana’s best bet at making health information widespread was the mobile platform.
He said Care 247 therefore comes in the form of SMS, USSD and Mobile Data and it is targeted at subscribers who need guidance on healthcare, nutrition, basic medication, child care, anti-natal and post-natal health, and sexual reproductive.
“The information on the platform is coming from doctors and other health professionals and they have been proof read by the Ghana Health Service to ensure quality and accurate information are delivered,” he said.
According to Conrad Nyuur, the voice version of the service will be rolled out in seven local dialects by the close of the year and the video version, where subscribers could do video call and speak directly with a health professional would also be rolled out subsequently.
He said the intent is to localize the service as much as possible and to make it available and accessible to a wider group of Ghanaian before making it go international.
“Users access Care 247 on *247# or on the Smart Doctor App on Google Play Store and there are currently about 250,000 users, out of which 97,000 access maternal health information regularly, 83,000 want sexual reproductive health information, child health information is about 42,000 and those who want nutrition information are about 10,000 plus,” he said.
Conrad Nyuur said once the voice version comes on stream, there would be opportunity for people make a call to a call centre where health professionals will be available to give answers to specific questions.
“Care 247 has been working for the past one year and has generated enough income to support itself and we think it time to scale it up and make it available to a wider global community and that is why we came to Busan to pitch and get investors to take it to the next level,” he said.
He said the service has been running with technical advice from the GSMA and based on their advice, MobileContent believes it ready to scale it up and allow even people outside Ghana have access to it.
Deputy Minister of Communications George Andah said he was impressed by a local private sector initiative like CARE 247, adding that those are the kind of initiatives government will support for the benefit of Ghanaians and beyond.
By Samuel Dowuona