• Healthcare digital tools reduce cost burden for Africa.
  • Digital tools make it easier for patients to comply with treatment plans.
  • Paperless data alone can saving up to $700 million in Kenya’s healthcare system.

Healthcare digital tools offers solutions to Africa, the continent with the largest disease burden and the most limited healthcare resources, globally. The acclamation was made by Marilyn Kimeu and Giovanni Sforza, associate partners in the McKinsey research institue of Nairobi, Kenya.

“Digital health tools could help health sys­tems deliver care at better quality, faster, and at lower cost and thereby optimize constrained resources, including a shortage of healthcare professionals, especially in rural areas…Africa has an opportunity to improve its healthcare systems by expanding its use of digital health tools,” the report authors attest.

According to the report, although digital health in most African regions is still in its infancy, advances in smartphone con­nectivity, data management policies and data infrastructure are starting to change the way health systems work in Africa.
“Rapid expansion in other areas, such as mobile financing, shows that leapfrogging is possible,” reads the report titled ‘How digital tools could boost efficiency in African health systems.”

The report goes on to point out that digital health tools could play an important role in boosting health system perfor­mance in Africa as well as help improve efficiency in the sector.

“First, they could improve access to essential health services, especially for hard-to-reach populations, women, refugees, persons with disabilities, and lower-income households,”

The report acknowledges that in most sub-Saharan countries, more than 20 percent of the population lives more than two hours away from essential health services and have limited ability to pay for the relatively high cost of healthcare.

That been the case; “improved access to patient data could help care providers make more accurate diagnoses and more effectively tailor interventions to prevent or treat disease,” the report suggests.

Further still, the report cites a 2018 study that found that only about 45 percent of clinical guidelines for many common conditions were followed in several African countries; “Digital tools could also make it easier for patients to comply with treatment plans,” it proposes.

Overall, the report authors are confident that digital health tools could strengthen health systems’ resilience by boosting their ability to identify, respond to, and recover from health emergencies.

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Financial impact of healthcare digital tools

However, only a few African countries meet the 2001 Abuja Declaration target of allocating 15 percent of public expenditures to health, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports.

According to a WHO cited analysis that was conducted to quantify the financial impact of digital health tools in Kenya (Nigeria, and South Africa), findings indicate that these countries could capture efficiencies of up to 15 percent in total healthcare expenditures by 2030.

The authors of the analysis report, titled ‘Africa potential efficiency gains in total healthcare expenditures 2030” say; “We chose these three countries for our analysis because they accounted for 85 per cent of digital health start-up funding in Africa in 2021, and they have granular healthcare spending data available for analysis,” the report explains.

By 2030, the report shows, widespread adoption of healthcare digital tools could unlock $400 million to $2.5 billion in Kenya. Paperless data alone accounts for 30 percent of the potential efficiency gains in Kenya saving up to $700 million, which shows the impact of healthcare digital tools.

Similarly, adoption of healthcare digital tools could save $700 million to $3.3 billion in Nigeria and $1.9 billion to $11 billion in South Africa. “These gains could be reinvested in other high-priority areas to increase overall health outcomes and finance the implementation and maintenance of healthcare digital tools,” the report suggests.

To achieve the most impact, the report identifies six categories of digital healthcare tools that could create efficiencies, these are; virtual inter­actions, paperless data, patient self-care, patient self-service, decision intelligence systems, and workflow automation.

“According to our analysis, shifting to virtual interactions and going paperless are the main drivers of potential healthcare expenditure efficiency gains in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa,” the report says.

Another example of healthcare digital tools is virtual interactions which account for approximately 43 per cent of potential efficiency gains in Kenya, which figuratively is in excess of $1.1 billion. Specifically, the cited virtual interactions include teleconsultations which allows for remote inter­actions between healthcare professionals and patients, particularly for minor health issues or follow-ups.

“This offers convenience and time saving for patients…broader adoption of teleconsultations could help reduce emergency admissions, improve chronic-disease management, and expand care access,” the report says.

Secondly, remote monitoring of vital signs and symptoms offers healthcare providers cost-effective solutions to manage patients with one or more chronic diseases such as diabetes, congestive heart failure, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

“Broader adoption of monitoring technol­ogies in Africa could help reduce emergency-room care and hospital admissions, help caregivers and patients better control chronic diseases, and enable earlier interventions,” it suggests.

Then there is electronic triage, another example of heathcare digital tools which refers to the use of AI-based online tools or phone services to determine up front whether patients need to visit an emergency room, consult with their primary-care providers (PCPs), or schedule a follow-up consul­tation with their caregiver.

“Electronic triage could help reduce nonurgent emergency-department visits, thus speeding up care for those most in need,” the report explains. Then there is the option of patient self-care, which the report say accounts for 4 percent of the potential efficiency gains in Kenya representing up to $100 million.

“It includes management applications that facilitate prescription adherence and patient edu­cation programs for chronic diseases such as mental illness, diabetes, and respiratory and cardiovascular diseases,” explains the report.

According to the findings, adoption of self-care solutions is still low in most African countries, and while, policies and resources today are mainly dedicated to fighting infectious diseases (primarily HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis), the WHO says noncommunicable diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes are increasingly becoming the main cause of mortality in sub-Saharan Africa where they were responsible for 37 percent of deaths in 2019, up from 24 percent in 2000.

Self-service technology

Healthcare digital tools allow for patient self-service which in turn accounts for 4 percent of the potential efficiency gains and the key self-service technology examined in the analysis was e-booking; Online portals that let patients book clinic visits, reschedule appointments, and schedule diagnostic tests.

“By giving patients greater control over their access to care, e-booking could reduce the costs of missed appointments and administrative costs,” the healthcare digital tools report concludes.

Finally, disease-prevention tools, such as mobile apps, virtual coaches, and fitness trackers, could also serve to promote healthy diets and physical activity. These tools, especially when integrated with clinical decision support systems could have widespread impact in improving healthcare across Africa both for the individual patient as well as in saving governments millions of dollars spent in the sector every year.