Global health is a hot topic right now. Yet, as any company designing products and services to address health issues in the developing world knows, the design is only the first step. There are plenty of stories of great designs but poor product adoption, especially due to cultural oversights. Be that as it may, we at Lumana are opening our data to social businesses so they can effectively identify sites, integrate products, and provide education to ensure effective use.
Looking at the map for the Keta District, the first thing visible is a that there is a gap on the eastern shore between Anloga and Tegbi and another in the mid-west between Tregui and Hatorgo. This might be an opportunity for mobile health units or for durable products such as rehydration packets to treat malaria that don’t need to be administered by a health professional.
Despite this, the District Assembly reports that as of the year 2000 93% of the population has used a hospital or health center, while about 36% used other health facilities. Also, less than 2% used spiritual and traditional healers. Of the 1887 people surveyed (an admittedly small sample size, not even 1% of Anloga), nearly 20% said they live more than 10km from a facility. Traveling even 10km can be difficult if you don’t live on a major road with access to transportation and even if you do, the condition of roads can significantly impede the speed of travel. Because people aren’t able to reach a facility as easily, this is a great opportunity for information technology to step in and bridge the distance or for disease cutting technologies such as water/sewage purifiers.
We can also see a change in the number of disease cases from 1996 to 2000, however this corresponds with an increase in access to health facilities so may just be a result of actual/better diagnosis. We also know that people are using these facilities because a full 68% of babies were delivered at a health care facility and 81% of the survey respondents received their medications from a gov’t health facility. Clearly, if you are creating a medicine or health product, then a good point of distribution is through the health centers and residents are open to new techniques and technologies.
Overall there is an opportunity here for health care services. There is an established distribution point (that is in desperate need of computer synchronization), two sizeable areas for first-mover’s advantage with an innovative health facility, and a population ready for modern technology. Already, the Economist reported in Sept. 2009 that Ghana had reached teledensity of 98% (although the IFC says this is less than 10% for rural/semi-urban areas). The Keta District though, does have ubiquitous cell phone coverage and is ripe for health care apps that can tie these health care facilities with related products and services.
*If you are interested in doing business in the Keta district or would like access to more information, please contact us at contact@lumana.org.
*If you can’t see a title on the graph, hover over it and a display will appear.
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