Kénéya Koura in Mali

Mali’s health system is suffering with a number of imbalances, including insufficient health structures and health professionals, distance between health infrastructures and citizens, and non-optimal administrative management burdened by cumbersome procedures.
To meet the needs of a population of 20 million people, Mali has only three large hospitals, with very few specialist and general practitioners. Given the obsolescence of the traditional health system, the obsolescence of medical equipment and bad practices, finding access to patient care is like finding the Holy Grail. This state of affairs constitutes a real obstacle to optimal care of patients, who have difficulty accessing adequate care.
In order to provide a solution to this problem, Kénéya Koura places the emphasis on using digital tools in the field of health, and is developing a telehealth platform and mobile app. The Kénéya Koura app allows on-line appointment booking, self-diagnosis and remote medical consultation, but also promotes digitisation of medical records and continuous communication between health stakeholders. It is thus designed to be a system of health sector democratisation, by allowing patients to play an active role in their own care, further reducing the workloads of doctors. It also promotes timely collaboration between actors in the telecom industry as well as in health establishments, state structures and NGOs, among others.

In Mali, the health sector is experiencing certain shortcomings, such as lack of health structures, lack of health professionals and obsolete medical equipment. Patient care levels are not optimal.

On the other hand, Mali is not on the fringes of the digital revolution, and is experiencing significant use of digital tools and internet access.

In this context, Kénèya Koura connects patients with doctors in Mali or at international level, through remote medical practice services. This solution should help improve the organisation of doctors’ availability. It offers innovative and remote medical support and monitoring, through an interface that is both simple and fun to use.

In early 2023:

• the service is deployed in Bamako and Ségou and has been used free of charge by 572 patients;
• the service brings together about one hundred doctors, located in Mali (Bamako, Ségou), Senegal and France (mainly from the diaspora), following a phase of prospecting, awareness and training on the system;
• a Premium version is currently being developed and a team of business developers is responsible for marketing the tool.

For both male and female patients wishing to save time in their care process, this solution has a system that allows then to make an on-line reservation on the doctors’ schedules. As the appointment date approaches, they receive automatic reminders by SMS and/or email; this avoids the need to travel to make an appointment and eliminates long queues at health facilities. Furthermore, patients can opt for remote consultations to reduce travel time, guarantee good-quality medical follow-up and reduce stress. To obtain a secondary medical opinion, patients who wish can teleconsult a specialist doctor in France. Finally, Kénèya Koura allows patients access to their medical history on their smartphone, accessible at any time. The directory of medical structures prevents patients from wasting time searching for the nearest health facility or directions or opening/closing times.

For doctors in Mali : Kénèya Koura represents a considerable time-saving, because the platform takes care of the management of appointments, allowing doctors to concentrate on patients and optimise and streamline medical practice. Furthermore, with remote consultation, doctors will have access to more patients, consultations for people living in isolated areas, and long-term follow-up. With the digitisation of patient files, medical information is more easily accessible to different practitioners, thus ensuring continuity in the care pathway.

For doctors outside Mali (France): Kénèya Koura allows collaboration between health professionals from Mali and those from other countries such as France. Specifically, this should make it possible to deal with rare conditions and to allow practitioners in France to train in diseases endemic in Africa. African doctors practising in France or elsewhere will be able to contribute to improving the quality of care for patients in Mali, without adversely affecting their professional activity. When a remote consultation is held, doctors in France will have access to medical information thanks to digitised patient files.