New app revolutionizes Togo's health system

In Togo, access to health care remains precarious. In addition to most health care centers being remote, most patients have to obtain new health records for each new consultation.

These situations do not allow health professionals to have continuous follow-up and insight into the health history of patients.

In order to remedy these shortcomings, in 2015, Kofivi Agbetiafa developed an application known as 'Dokita Eyes', that allows health professionals to keep an eye on their patients at all times, wherever they are.

Patients are required to fill in their personal details online using any phone and later doctors will key in all health-related complications of the patients. This later acts as a reference point to many doctors.

"The application itself is like a health book. It is simply a health book that we have digitized. A physical health book that everyone knows today. The book has been digitized and we have done it in such a way that there are many related services linked to this same solution.

"For example, with this application, you can order medicines, which is not possible with physical booklets," Koffivi Agbetiafa, the promoter Dokita Eyes told Africanews.

The application that does not necessarily require the patient to have a smartphone, Dokita Eyes is a real innovative solution, especially for rural populations and disadvantaged groups.

The patient's digital health record can be created via the phone of a relative or health worker. Then, using a QR code like this one, the patient can have access to his health booklet containing all the information of his previous consultations to which his doctor is automatically entitled to thanks to the alerts.

This has revolutionized the health system in Togo and more than 80,000 people have subscribed to the application in the entire country.

"Today we have been able to create nearly eighty thousand health booklets, both for pregnant women and children under five years of age.

"So this solution in remote areas allows the community health worker to regularly visit the pregnant woman, to take the vital parameters regularly and to document their health booklet from the community and send these data to the head nurse of the post in the peripheral care unit or to the midwife in the unit," Koffivi Agbetiafa, the promoter Dokita Eyes said.

In use for now 6 years, the application is in its 3rd version. Updates are regularly made to improve its functionality. The aim today, for this innovative team, is to serve several users while focusing on the protection of patient data.