2023年7月12日

盡管第一點的要求許多尼日利亞人,超過一半的尼日利亞的私人衛生設施缺乏外部的資金來源。氦健康是通過其產品,解決這個HeliumCredit。當氦健康開始數字化電子病曆(EMR)在尼日利亞,Adegoke Olubusi, CEO,發現了一個市場空白。私人醫療設施,盡管第一點的要求許多尼日利亞人,缺乏外部資金。超過一半的私人醫療設施在尼日利亞缺乏外部融資,根據Pharmaccess的數據。“我們開始理解更深入地與醫療融資存在的差距,但我們如何變得更明顯沉重和差距這是有多寬。我們想要建立一個解決方案,可以橋,”Olubisi告訴TechCabal。2020年,Olubisi和他的團隊啟動HeliumCredit給醫院、診所、藥店和診斷中心貸款購買醫療設備和藥物和促進業務擴張。使用貸款規模是任何商業戰略的一個關鍵部分。非洲衛生籌資660億美元赤字,這主要是由於數據的缺乏。 Investors and donors often rely on data-driven assessments to determine the impact and effectiveness of their contributions. Helium Health bridges the data gap by enrolling hospitals on HeliumOS—its core product which digitises electronic medical records. The EMR gathers information about the hospital’s finances and other metrics, which HeliumCredit uses to decide whether a hospital can receive a loan. “With HeliumOS, we can see that there is this financing issue, and we saw that the lenders wanted to lend, and we said, how can we use this technology in the data system to digitize the end-to-end process?” Olubisi told TechCabal. How it works HeliumCredit provides easy access to credit for hospitals and healthcare institutions in an entirely digital process. Intending applicants apply for financing via HeliumCredit’s website and receive a disbursement of funds within 48 hours of approval. The average loan size is about ₦14m. Helium Health deploys loans through the Helium Wallet feature. The loan can then be repaid over an 18-month period. For hospitals already enrolled on HeliumOS, Helium Health combines their existing data with third-party data from the banks. “So everything from their operations, to their inventory, to their stock, to their invoices and how it’s invoiced. Who pays and when they pay, and how they pay, or their insurance and their insurance claims,” Olubisi said, enumerating the type of data they typically gather. “So, when it comes to financial and operational data, there’s a lot of critical information that is already within the system. And that is what supports the decision and process.” “For example, if a healthcare facility requests a loan of ₦50 million, we decide if the facility can pay back the loan based on the data supplied. So we might decide to give the user a ₦5 million loan, based on the numbers we have of them,” he added. According to Olubisi, Helium Credit has disbursed loans worth $3 million to hundreds of facilities. “These loans have been critical to these healthcare facilities in acquiring medical equipment, scaling their operations, better quality of care, attracting more experienced talent, and restocking their inventory.” Olubisi claims that 70-80% of the healthcare facilities that obtained loans from HeliumCredit have returned to obtain more loans. Despite the risky nature of the credit-financing model, none of HeliumCredit’s clients have defaulted on their loans, according to Olubisi. “In cases where healthcare facilities default on the payment of loans, we will offer a full cycle of monitoring of the facility and provide support to them: whether it is capacity development through education or financial training,” he said. Driving health tech innovation in Africa Helium Health secured a $30 million in investment from a Series B funding round in June this year. The funding round will be used to expand the reach of HeliumCredit. While interest in healthtech startup funding spiked in 2023—per data from The Big Deal— health tech startups witnessed a 7% year-on-year growth in funding, showing that credit financing is still in the nascent stage on the continent. The YC-backed healthtech startup claims to be the widest-reaching EMR platform in West Africa, used by more than 10,000 health workers across 1,000 facilities to care for over 1 million African patients. Helium Health has great plans for expansion. According to the CEO, the company is set to launch HeliumCredit in Kenya in 2024 and will also increase its lending portfolio to 1,000 healthcare facilities by 2024, in partnership with the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). Share this article