At Movement Health Foundation, we collaborate with public and private partners to introduce digital solutions that enhance access to quality healthcare. This is the story of how Daniel Marfo partnered with this non-profit to take his solution to the next level.

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Not so long ago in Ghana, one of the most disheartening situations for healthcare professionals was when a patient in the hospital needed medication. People had to take the prescription and go from pharmacy to pharmacy in search of the specific medicine. Sometimes they were lucky, but other times the medication was scarce, resulting in wasted time and money.

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Daniel Marfo, a trained pharmacist, noticed this challenging situation. “As a pharmacist, I realized the little you could do is call out to other pharmacies and see if you have this medicine, but you just have so little time to spend with them.” Therefore, he decided to act and find a solution. As the co-founder of RX HEALTH INFO SYSTEMS, he has connected over 5000 healthcare facilities in nations like Ghana, Nigeria, Angola, DRC, and Rwanda, providing cutting-edge solutions for health facilities, insurers, and pharmaceutical companies. So he had the experience to approach the Ghana government, the vice president of the Pharmacy Council, the Ministry of Health, and national health authorities to collaborate on a national-level solution.

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This partnership led to the development of the National e-Pharmacy Platform (NEPP), which connects every retail pharmacy in the country. Now, before a patient is discharged from the hospital, their prescription is entered into the platform, which then sends the prescription to pharmacies within a 5-kilometer radius of the patient's location. This allows pharmacies to instantly see the prescription and reach out to the patient through a text message with instructions on how to pick up the medication.

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This solution has greatly benefited patients, as they can now leave the hospital with the assurance that their medication will be available at the pharmacy. This has saved them time, money, and stress.

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The next step for Marfo was partnering with Movement Health Foundation. That was crucial as it took the solution to the next level by utilizing the platform in a reverse manner. Through MHF, Marfo observed that many Ghanaian patients visiting pharmacies needed antihypertensive or antidiabetic medications. In Africa, it is very common for people to go to the pharmacy to check their blood pressure and blood sugar levels as a complementary service or for a small fee. However, when patients were evaluated in the pharmacy, they did not have a tool or system available to capture their data so that informed decisions could be made that would allow those at risk to be referred to the hospital or ensure that they were cared for. Only casually were they told to visit their doctors. There were also no incentives for pharmacies to fully adopt this service, much less a policy that obligated pharmacies to perform this professional duty.

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This lack of information about patients at risk of hypertension or diabetes posed a gap. They thought, ‘What if we use this technology (the NEPP) to refer people to the hospital when they need it.’ This led to the development of an intervention that targets community pharmacies in urban and semi-urban areas in Ghana and creates a system that captures data and transmits care to higher levels.

“The solution basically tracks if a person is at risk of hypertension or if they are taking medications, but their blood pressure keeps going up, and tells them to go for normal checkups and then sends them back for referral to the hospital through the same network,” explains Marfo.

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By the time the person gets to the clinic, the healthcare provider will already have some history of their blood pressure readings, and because the patient is taking medication, they will be able to see their medication history. Movement Health works with the regulator for pharmacies to implement the solution using the National e-Pharmacy Platform (NEPP). Stakeholders are being educated and trained in person and via webinars on screening protocols for hypertension, how to document screening results, and when and how to refer patients. Clinicians will be partnered with to develop the criteria and protocols for use at the pharmacy level. The interventions will culminate with a data analytic dashboard that will analyze the trends of the data being captured and will be available to both pharmacies and policymakers.

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“It now makes a full circle,” adds Marfo, because it leverages on the system and then uses it in another way to bring people to the hospital. “It has been an amazing work by partnering with the foundation to take the technology to the next level.”

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This solution in Ghana demonstrates how the Movement Health Foundation operates. Their innovative approach involves identifying the needs and opportunities within a community to improve access to quality healthcare. In the case of Ghana, they recognized that pharmacies are where patients most frequently seek healthcare in urban areas. By focusing on optimizing healthcare delivery based on where patients already are, the pharmacies can better serve the community.

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Tisha Boatman, global lead for Access to Care at Siemens Healthineers and global board member of the Foundation, visited Ghana to witness the effectiveness and scalability of their solution. She emphasized the importance of prioritizing what is most beneficial for the patients, ensuring they are “at the forefront of any digital health solution. The key is to consider where the patient is located and what will best support their needs”.