AFRICA
REGIONAL
CHANNELS
AFRICA
industry, it comes as no surprise to see
Converge’s enhanced versions of the solution
already being adopted by healthcare
organisations in other African markets.”
Joubert says healthcare is an inherently
complex industry.
“During the course of their stay, one
patient may interact with multiple external
healthcare professionals and/or entities,
who deliver independent yet interrelated
services to the patient,” he said.
He adds that patients also have a range of
benefit structures from different medical aid
schemes, with different pricing mechanisms,
which adds layers of complexity.
“The key is to deploy a solution that
simplifies all of this complexity, allowing a
single view of the patient, with high levels
of automation and sophistication, freeing up
healthcare professionals to spend more time
with the patient,” he said.
“There are a range of offerings in the
market that are very simple to deploy and
simple to use, but without the sophistication
to address all of these elements effectively,
forcing hospitals to throw people towards
a system deficiency. Our solution doesn’t
ignore these complexities, it simplifies
them, with an appropriate level of control,
flexibility and ease of use.”
With some other countries having a
multitude of medical schemes operating,
submitting medical aid claims and checking
the eligibility of patient benefits for certain
procedures or care can be a time-consuming
administrative burden without the
appropriate solutions in place.
“We integrate to Medikredit, a switching
company for medical aid claims that has
enabled real time eligibility checking, among
other rich functionality,” said Joubert.
“Healthcare organisations using our
solution can quickly check that patient
benefits are still intact and that the medical
aid will cover the costs.
“Once the service is billed, the claim can
be submitted to the medical aid scheme
immediately and with minimal rejections
since the eligibility of the claim was
performed beforehand. This integrated
approach ensures a dramatically lower claim
rejection rate.”
Joubert adds that a large part of the
co-innovation project focused on reducing
the operational complexity inherent within
healthcare organisations.
“We made use of best practices, but also
ensured the system is localised to serve
the specific operational needs of African
private sector hospitals,” he said. “This was
achieved through more than a decade of
working side by side with healthcare entities
to understand their pains and architect
solutions, along with an active inclusion of
industry thought leaders through the system
enhancement process.
“We also extended the standard SAP
solution by integrating our own solutions to
augment what is already offered, including
PatientMyth (a digital patient survey and
intervention platform), Impi (a clinical
incident management platform), Virtual
Forms (a form digitalisation platform) and
Triton (an advanced acuity based nursing
planning and optimisation solution).
“We have partnered and/or integrated
with a number of other leading entities
including, but not limited to, Cerner, Elsevier
and Medikredit.
“We are constantly evaluating and
integrating other products and partners
into our ecosystem to ensure that
healthcare providers can source all IT
related products and services from one
point of accountability.
“Our solutions offer simplification
and predictability, extending to timeline,
budget, appropriate levels of sophistication
and standardised levels of care, to cover all
permutations of healthcare in Africa.” •
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS
INTELLIGENT
TECH CHANNELS Issue 32
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