In Kenya, some sell medical data online to access doctor appointments

The company behind the app says it helps more people get qualified medical attention without having to pay for it in cash.

Transcript

00:00 [Music]

00:18 For me it's an achievement because sometimes when I want to go to an hospital for a phantom pain,

00:25 I need to have some money for the consultation and everything.

00:29 But with the app, I only ask Dr. Nick if I can see him, like, through the app,

00:34 if I can see him in his available hours.

00:37 And he was like, "Yeah, you can just come. We'll solve that with the app on us."

00:41 [Music]

00:49 When the patient logs on our platform, he has two choices.

00:52 Either to take part of our data monetization program,

00:55 or just simply pay via M-Pesa, pay cash, and proceed to book a consultation.

01:01 If they choose to be part of our data monetization, which again, our data is all anonymized,

01:07 they will earn at least 33%, or a third of their earnings from our data set.

01:15 [Music]

01:24 I have been using this application for about two years, and it has really changed the way I practice.

01:32 I am now able to put my available times on the application,

01:37 and the patient on the other side is able to see the time.

01:40 This has improved the time management such that the patient doesn't have to wait for too long,

01:45 and now I am also able to earn through the app.

01:50 [Music]

01:58 What would be the holy grail here in drug development is a drug that is tailored specifically to the needs of an individual person.

02:07 And this personalization of drugs could be achieved through big data approaches,

02:16 through techniques of machine learning, so AI technologies could be used here.

02:21 But this again requires this huge amount of individual health data.

02:27 Once it's anonymized, that means we'll never know what the encounters are only between the doctor and the patient,

02:33 and we cannot trace back to which particular patient is diagnosed with what.

02:38 The algorithm is only kicking out the information we are searching.

02:42 So let's say a data customer is searching for specific things like malaria patterns happening in certain sides of the country,

02:50 then SNAC-Health is able to show all these analytics.

02:54 [Music]

03:02 Blockchain technology can be secure because it's immutable, it's tamper-proof, it's pseudonymous,

03:11 and then there's the cryptographic authentication.

03:14 However, it's not foolproof, and it is specific to the type of blockchain.

03:18 Ethical standards when it comes to healthcare are particularly high as you're dealing with vulnerable segments of society

03:24 or those in a vulnerable state or a vulnerable state of life.

03:28 So the first thing I would advise is to have accurate rhetoric around the capabilities.

03:35 That has a key ethical consideration because people download it and think this app promises them the world.

03:42 [Music]