Movement Health aims to transform Africa's healthcare for better lives
Co-founders
Regional Challenges And
Opportunities
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Equity and access
Currently, fair and equal access to healthcare is denied to over half of Africa's population. To address this, achieving universal health coverage (UHC) is essential.
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Disease prevention
By adopting broad prevention plans, African countries could better deal with the significant rise in noncommunicable diseases and the lack of health services targeting them.
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Health costs
Each year, millions of Africans pay exorbitant medical expenses that might be reduced with increased cooperation, digitization, and accuracy-driven efficiency.
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Collaboration
Greater collaboration between health stakeholders could help governments better implement the health innovation strategies needed to enhance patient care.
Our Story
Movement Health started its journey in Africa in 2022. Kicking off in Algeria and South Africa, each country began by recruiting local experts to expert panels where they reviewed local research, shared insights and decided where action, at the system and service levels respectively, will have the most impact.
Algeria
In Algeria, the expert panel has prioritized three areas of focus: digitisation, care provision and financing. In 2023, an innovation challenge was held to look for tested, scalable solutions in these areas. This led to Movement Health Partnering with Roche Algeria to Modernize Healthcare in this region.
Ghana
The pharmacy community in Ghana, which serves as the first point of contact for much of the population’s healthcare, has untapped potential in identifying and referring patients at risk of hypertension. According to a 2022 WHO report, hypertension caused 94,000 deaths in the country in 2016. In partnership with local organizations, efforts are underway to address this challenge by upgrading the National e-Pharmacy Platform (NEPP), an existing system that already connects many pharmacies across the country. The goal is to create a referral pathway from pharmacies to hospitals, enabling the identification of patients at risk of hypertension or those struggling to manage the condition, and ensuring they are referred to appropriate care centers for timely treatment.
South-Africa
In South Africa, cervical cancer remains one of the most prevalent cancers among women, second only to breast cancer. A high percentage of cervical cancer cases in the country are detected at advanced stages, highlighting a need for improved prevention and early detection efforts through screening. To address this problem, the Movement Health Foundation will collaborate with the Nelson Mandela University Centre for Community Technologies, local experts, organizations, and the Department of Health to develop a user-friendly Progressive Web App (PWA). This app will make cancer information and screening centers more accessible, reducing preventable deaths and improving outcomes for women at risk
Bulgaria
Bulgaria faces challenges in making healthcare procedures more effective, as existing treatment protocols are mainly outlined on paper. To address this, a National Health Information System (NHIS) is needed. This system would integrate key information and guidelines into electronic health records (EHR), ensuring patients can easily access medical pathways. At the same time, the Digital Health Village (DHV), a public online service developed by Finnish university hospitals, has proven to be a successful model. DHV provides information and support to the public, patient care, and tools for healthcare professionals. Recognizing its potential to improve patient outcomes, the MHF team has identified DHV as a promising digital health solution.
Chile
Chile has made significant progress in personal data protection, and there are exciting opportunities to further strengthen data governance in healthcare, especially in managing health data securely throughout its life cycle while protecting privacy and ensuring ethical use. To support this, the Movement Health Foundation and local partners are developing a project that will create a policy framework for policymakers and a practical guide for healthcare institutions to adopt responsible data governance practices. The expected outcomes include empowering patients with greater control over their data, improving hospital management, enhancing care delivery, and advancing predictive medicine, clinical research, and AI development.
Colombia
Cardiovascular illnesses were a major health concern in Colombia, with many individuals at risk and undiagnosed. To address this, Colombia’s health plan allocated significant resources, and in 2021, the Movement Health Foundation launched an open innovation challenge, leading to the creation of “Salud 360.” This digital solution improved patient adherence, cardiovascular risk management, and clinical cost control by integrating hospital data for proactive prevention and personalized treatment. Deployed in Baranoa in 2022, it enhanced access to care, promoted interoperability between institutions, and achieved notable cost savings. Salud 360 aimed to reach all high-risk patients in Colombia, ensuring equitable access and optimized health spending.
Mexico
The transition to a modern healthcare system in Mexico City presents an opportunity to move from paper-based records to electronic systems, enhancing healthcare efficiency and quality. To address this, the Health Information and Institutional Systems Directorate of SEDESA, with support from the Movement Health Foundation, Microsoft, and the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies (CIFS), developed dynamic dashboards. These tools visualize data from 35 hospitals, enabling strategic analysis to optimize decision-making and healthcare management. The dashboards will improve access and coverage by providing key metrics for informed decisions, promote transparency, foster collaboration, and facilitate the monitoring of resource performance. As other regions face similar challenges, these tools will help develop interoperability frameworks across the healthcare system, streamlining processes and ensuring optimal resource allocation based on clear, comparable data.
Peru
In Peru there were over 4,000 new cervical cancer cases in 2023, ranking as the second most frequent cancer among women aged 15 to 44, with mortality exceeding 2,000 cases annually (ICO/IARC, 2023). The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted surveillance efforts, resulting in a decrease of up to 76% of cervical cancer screening tests. This project aims to increase early diagnosis, improve wait times and the user experience to reduce preventable morbidity and mortality among female cancer patients. https://movement-health.org/region-explore/latin-america/
Africa
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Tõnu Esko
Vice Director of Development and head of Estonian Biobank Innovation Center at Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu
