MTN has partnered with Hello Doctor, a subsidiary of Metropolitan Health, to offer mobile health services to a number of African countries, starting with SA.
Hello Doctor is an app that is free to download and available on both smartphones and feature phones. The app gives users access to daily-updated healthcare advice, answers to health-related questions in live group chat forums, confidential one-on-one text-a-doctor Q&As, and the ability to receive a call back from a doctor within 60 minutes.
MTN and Hello Doctor have now partnered to deliver this m-health solution to MTN's territories across Africa, including SA, Swaziland, Zambia, Ghana, Uganda, Cameroon and Rwanda.
A statement released by MTN says the partnership between the two entities comes as a technology-based solution designed to work with local general practitioners (GPs) to ensure consumers receive the right information before seeing a doctor.
Hello Doctor director Craig Townsend points out the app is not intended to replace the GP, but instead to support primary and preventative healthcare by acting as an assistant to local GPs when consumers want a quick healthcare reference before seeing their GP or rushing off to the hospital.
The paid-for services that will be available to MTN subscribers via the Hello Doctor mobile app include Digital Doctor and House Call.
House Call gives users telephonic access to a doctor 24 hours a day, as well as additional health and wellness services. Digital Doctor allows subscribers to send a confidential SMS through the Hello Doctor app and one of their doctors will respond with personal advice within two hours.
"Technology has made a huge impact on how the industry delivers healthcare," says Townsend. "Hello Doctor believes that its innovative offering across multiple technological platforms and its partnership with MTN, will allow us to work towards affordable and accessible healthcare for all. Underpinning the success of this goal is creating a link between technology and first-world clinical protocols, facilitated by medical professionals committed to making a difference that is both affordable and simple."
The service will also be integrated with existing healthcare services that MTN already offers, such as the midwife programme in Ghana.
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