The United Nations and World Health Organization have long recognized health as a fundamental human right. Yet barriers to care persist — not only in the United States, but around the world.
PERSOWN Connect is introducing a bold new care model designed to help break down those barriers. Its innovative platform empowers underserved communities by combining AI-powered diagnostic tools, microloans and satellite connectivity to deliver life-changing care and promote economic growth globally.
Guests:
Carey Officer, President, PERSOWN Connect
Deborah Maufi, MD, MBA, Strategic EU/Africa Consultant, The Netherlands
Arthur Pereira, CEO, Missão Sal da Terra in Uberlandia, Brazil
Host/Producer: Carol Vassar
TRANSCRIPT
Announcer:
Welcome to Well Beyond Medicine, the world’s top-ranked children’s health podcast produced by Nemours Children’s Health. Subscribe on any platform at nemourswellbeyond.org or find us on YouTube.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Each week, we’ll be joined by innovators and experts from around the world, exploring anything and everything related to the 85% of child health impacts that occur outside the doctor’s office. I’m your host, Carol Vassar. And now that you’re here, let’s go.
MUSIC:
Let’s go-oh-oh, Well Beyond Medicine.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Both the United Nations and the World Health Organization have long recognized the right to health as a basic right for everyone. Yet, we know that barriers exist to accessing healthcare, not just here in the US, but across the globe. That’s why today we’re exploring a healthcare platform that is part healthcare, part AI, part entrepreneurship, and all about getting healthcare services to parts of the world where it’s most needed. It’s called PERSOWN Connect, which uses innovative medical technology, or MedTech, and marries it to the latest in financial technologies, or FinTech, creating a model that brings high-quality, affordable healthcare solutions and economic growth opportunities to underserved, often rural communities in nations such as Tanzania, Brazil, and Ghana.
Joining me to discuss this groundbreaking work is Carey Officer, President of PERSOWN Connect, Dr. Deborah Maufi, Health Care Strategist and Advisor to PERSOWN, speaking with us from Tanzania. And Arthur Pereira, CEO of Missao Sal da Terra, a nonprofit health organization in Uberlândia, Brazil, where he joined us from. PERSOWN Connect is a unique and forward-leaning platform. Here’s Carey Officer to tell us more.
Carey Officer, President, PERSOWN Connect:
So, PERSOWN Connect is really a FinTech/MedTech platform. We are designing a platform to deliver affordable, yet high-quality healthcare to underserved families right in their own communities across the world. And at its core, we are looking to upskill healthcare workers into trained community medical technicians, or we also call them CMTs. You’ll hear me refer to them as that. And we’re really equipping them with an AI-powered diagnostic platform, a diagnostic care kit. You hear a little bit about Starlink for connectivity purposes, so that they can access telehealth capabilities to remote locations. And then, also, where our name came from, PERSOWN, is partially own their health record.
So, these CMTs operate as local franchise owners, creating a sustainable healthcare micro business supported by local NGOs or healthcare organizations, and then also micro-lenders. And I know we’ll get into a little bit more about that. Really, our goal is simple. I think it’s powerful to make first-world healthcare innovation accessible to the 4.8 billion people who are currently underserved across the world.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
That’s a massively important goal, and it’s a goal that has a lot of moving parts to it. How do you see this moving forward? And what are some of the core challenges you’re running up against? You can’t take this all in one bite. I’m assuming you have to take it in, in small, little incremental bites, but you’re getting it out there. Talk about the challenges. Talk about some of the ways that you’re getting these franchises out to folks who need it.
Carey Officer, President, PERSOWN Connect:
So, one of the keys is partnership. As we think about deploying this across the world, in many developing countries, there’s many groups who lack access to high-quality care. There’s a lack of diagnostics that are out there and accessible. We here in the United States have the luxury of having many at our fingertips. I can’t say that they’re all affordable, but working on that. And then there’s just a large shortage of trained personnel across the world. The WHO came out and said, “We need an additional 15 million healthcare workers across the world to be able to meet the needs today.” That’s a problem. We’re not going to be able to train enough doctors, enough nurses to be able to do this. What we do know is we have an amazing number of frontline healthcare workers. In Africa alone, it’s estimated at 2.5 million community health workers today that could help us deliver this care.
So, it’s a challenge as you start to think about it. And so, that’s where our unique model comes into play of really building a franchise model so that we’re empowering these local communities to be able to provide care by really outfitting them with a platform, a sustainable platform with diagnostic tools, with internet connectivity through Starlink, which a few years ago really wasn’t available. And the use of AI diagnostic tools as well. So, leveraging AI to be able to understand what’s happening on the ground, do diagnostics, throw that up into the cloud, bring that back, and really guide these community medical technicians to be able to deliver care for their communities.
One of the biggest things that we can do today is partnering with people like Dr. Maufi, to partnering with people like Arthur as the CEO of a rather large nonprofit health organization. They understand their communities, they know what they need, and we want to partner with them to bring best-in-class technologies to bear in their communities.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
I want to bring Dr. Maufi into the conversation right now. You’re joining us from Tanzania. And I want to say that this technology is impressive. It’s EHRs, it’s AI tools, it’s telehealth, it’s medical training, and text-based payments. How does the platform, PERSOWN Connect, meet the healthcare needs of people in remote and underserved areas, from what you’ve witnessed?
Dr. Deborah Maufi, DPM Healthcare Consultancy:
Thank you so much, Carol. And yeah, I’m really excited to share this, because really, healthcare in resource-limited settings is something that’s really close to my heart. That’s what I live for. And how I see what we are doing, PERSOWN Connect, is really how we approach healthcare is going to be a game-changer. I think of our model as a bridge that connects remote communities to advanced modern care. And then we partnered with technology, which now becomes a force multiplier to increase reach, capacity, efficiency of these systems, especially in these areas where the healthcare systems are really overwhelmed. So, while we are leveraging these technology tools, we are bringing healthcare closer to the people. In areas where this is fragmented, we see things like the EHR technologies, that it makes it easier to have data in one place, which means it’s also easier to analyze this data and make better healthcare decisions.
But then also AI tools, we see mountains of data that are in AI tools that can really help us master patterns and identify risks before, so that we can actually intervene before the problem gets bigger. But it goes beyond that access to healthcare. We see that the doctor-patient ratios in rural settings it’s a big issue. In Tanzania, for example, you have one doctor serving about 8,000 plus patients in a population of about 10,000 people, while the WHO recommends about 439 healthcare workers per 10,000 people. So, we are really far behind. But then most of these healthcare workers are concentrated in urban settings, so the biggest gap is in this rural settings. And this is where we come in, and this technology is going to help us bridge that gap. And then we also find out that a lot of people in rural settings do not have bank accounts or credit cards, or even health insurance.
In Tanzania, for example, and (the) majority of Eastern Africa, we see mobile money being the biggest form of transactions. That’s what more people use. So, by using this text-based payments, we are actually using what the community is already familiar with to make this financial healthcare purchases much easier for them, rather than introducing a completely new technology that will actually become a new barrier as well for them to access healthcare. So, we are providing a healthcare ecosystem that’s really breaking down existing barriers in these settings. And yes, it really is going to meet the needs of most of the people in these rural settings.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Arthur, I want to turn to you. You’re joining us from Brazil. And you, and I’m sure Dr. Maufi, are really deeply familiar with some of the economic and healthcare challenges that we’ve outlined. You see it probably every day in your organization. You have rural and underserved areas there in South America, Dr. Maufi, in Africa. A lot of the people who are taking advantage of this are women. What does it mean for women in these areas to be trained as CMTs and to become entrepreneurs? It has an influence, I’m sure, both on their family life, being able to support a family, and on their community’s health.
Arthur Pereira, CEO, Missao Sal da Terra:
Thank you for the invite, Carol, Carey, and Dr. Deborah. I’m very happy to share with you guys what we’ve been doing here in Brazil, especially in Uberlândia. I think that women being trained is a social issue, as an opportunity for her to generate income for her family. And it’s empowering on every level. In Brazil, many women today are vulnerable in vulnerable communities, already play central roles in caregiving. So, when we train them as CMTs, we are formalizing that calling into professions. So, they become trusted health providers, business owners, and role models. And it’s very important for their family also. And it creates a ripple effect, so they have better care for families, income for women, and more resilient communities. It’s not just health innovation. It’s a social justice in action that we’re talking about.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Dr. Maufi, I want to ask you about the training component of the platform. These are not doctors. These are community healthcare workers. What kind of training do they get as part of the PERSOWN Connect platform?
Dr. Deborah Maufi, DPM Healthcare Consultancy:
So, the training that we intend to give is a three-part training, I would say, because we are not just giving them tools to go to the community and do diagnostics, but rather this is a business model. So, we want to provide them with financial literacy, how they can actually run a business. But then, also, we’re going to provide them training on the diagnostics part, the healthcare delivery part, how they can do also respectful healthcare, not just healthcare, but really respectful healthcare, plus quality. And then we have the technology component, which is a big part of our model. That as well, that we also need to train them on how to use this technology effectively and really gather data accurately so that we can actually improve these healthcare outcomes.
But then on the other hand, this training is not just an ordinary training, because as I like to say is that we’re actually creating a new health care cadre out there. We already have, for example, in Tanzania, we have the community health workers who’ve received baseline training that were project-specific. For example, if there is a project by USAID or by another NGO in the past, that ran for five years and they had community health workers, they’ll train them on that particular topic. Let’s say, if it’s HIV self-testing in the community. But once that project is done, then these community health workers are left with nothing else, and the government that does not have enough resources to really take them in.
So, we want to piggyback on that and now create a new cadre whereby this training we intend for it to be accredited, so that they become certified medical technicians. So, they become a gap between community health workers and the nurses and medical doctors, et cetera. This will be a new cadre in there. We are upskilling, basically, the community health worker, so they’ll have a more expanded knowledge and more expanded skills that they can provide more detailed care at community level. But Carol, if you don’t mind, here to backtrack a little bit, because I wanted to play around with Arthur’s talk on what this means for women as well.
I mean, if we train women to become CMTs, we are not just empowering this one woman, but rather communities. World Bank had data a while back ago. I think they did a study and they found out that women actually invest 90% of their income back into the community. So, then compared to men with about 30 to 40%. So, really, if we have targeting women who are actually a very interesting party to train to become CMTs, we are empowering communities, and communities, and communities. And then not just that. We see in Tanzania, for example, in a lot of low-income settings, we find that women are the trusted caregivers. Traditionally, they are known for that, for the children, the elderly, the sick. So, this cultural norm builds on a deep-rooted sense of trust, especially in context where health systems are really weak or unavailable.
So, these women become a really strong unit to advancing healthcare. They also tend to have wider social networks. They tend to participate a lot in social activities compared to men. And this means that they already have that footing on the ground to really gather more people to provide health education and basically help fix the health of their communities better than their male counterparts.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
It’s like a democratization of healthcare. And it uses or makes use of the trusted people in the community, oftentimes the women who have been caregivers to start with, if I’m hearing it all correctly. I want to talk about the business side of this and the micro lending. Now, to be part of this, it’s like setting up a business. You need that kind of capital to get yourself started. Carey, how do community members, mostly women, access micro-lenders and mentorship to access this model and sustain this model moving forward?
Carey Officer, President, PERSOWN Connect:
Yeah. It’s a great question. And it really is the underpinning of the sustainability piece of this equation, as we think about healthcare delivery and the challenges that are happening today with the pullback with USAID, some of those dollars, and projects, and many other countries as well. And so, many countries are looking for ways to build sustainable platforms, provide sustainable healthcare, and treat it like a business. And so, that’s very much where the micro-lenders come in. There’s over 3,000 micro-lenders across the world, both regional and there’s wholesale micro-lenders as well. And so, the goal really is for that micro lender to provide a loan to that local community medical technician, so that she can begin her business. And when she does that and receives those funds, those basically pay for the PERSOWN Connect platform. So, she will have access to an app that she’ll be using on her phone to serve her community.
There will also be a member app. And we’ll talk a little bit about the structure of how this gets paid for. But the members, the community members, will have access to a member app so they can partially own their health records. So, the micro lender provides the loan around $2,500. She gets the equipment, she gets the training, and she gets the support. So, we’re building a platform to really support the continuum of healthcare. It’s not project specific, it’s not just HIV, it’s not just malaria. It’s not just chronic diseases, such as diabetes, but really pulling those pieces together to serve the needs of the community. Because what’s happening in Brazil might look a little different from a care delivery or what the communities need than it does in Tanzania. And so, when the micro lender provides that loan to the CMT, she begins building her business.
And we call it the River of Dimes. So, the members basically subscribe to the platform and begin to pay a small weekly subscription fee. We’re talking around 50 cents for a family of six. She provides that. The CMT begins to build her business. She also augments that with telehealth visits. So, there’s other little revenue streams that are there as well for her. But then she provides that care to the community. And then our payment platform, this is where the MedTech/Fintech comes in, will basically be taking those payments and then distributing them to the CMT, directly to the micro lender to pay back their loan. And then our franchise, master franchise partner, that’s that integrated partner within in country, similar to as we look at Arthur and his team, to really be able to facilitate and oversee that healthcare aspect. They understand the policies, the healthcare insurance, and the culture that healthcare is delivered in.
We know healthcare is very much a belly-to-belly business. And so, having these CMTs empowered with tools, technology, and the micro lending to build their own business is the key underpinning to a sustainable model that can live for generations. So, think about this community medical technician. She becomes an entrepreneur. She does this for five or six years. And then she decides, “You know what? I want to go be a nurse and work in the hospital system.” She now has an asset that she could sell to somebody else. So, nobody drops the ball in the continuity of care in that community. We bring on another community medical technician to be able to serve. And we can do that through the micro lending process.
One thing I’ll bring up, too, as we think about this ecosystem, is that the micro-lenders only have so much to lend, like any bank from that perspective. And so, what we’re trying to do on the finance side of this is to basically create a special purpose entity that would come in and purchase all those microloans from around the world. It could be in Brazil, it could be Tanzania, Ghana. Pull those together into asset-backed securities and sell them on the global bond market, which is about a $128 trillion market, which will ultimately drive down the cost to the end consumer. And so, that really brings a lot of economic benefit to those micro-lenders and these communities through this financing mechanism. So, again, that’s where we’re trying to create a sustainable platform that not only provides better care at a low cost using advanced tools, but also in improving the financing of capital with and around these countries.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
It’s impressive how you have thought of every aspect of this, from training to financing, to sustainability, to moving the franchise to the next person, continuity of care. Arthur, I want to turn to you. This initiative started in Brazil. It’s also in Ghana. It’s soon going to be in Tanzania. What have you learned about adapting across cultures, across systems, while at the same time staying true to the mission of getting this out to everybody in the entrepreneurial spirit?
Arthur Pereira, CEO, Missao Sal da Terra:
It’s been very interesting, our conversation with Carey and all the team. Because when we got the first contacts of PERSOWN Connect and all this amazing project, we tried to see how we can adapt the project here in Brazil. Because we’ve learned that the technology alone, it doesn’t bring the transformation. The key is the trust. The most important connection is not just digital. It’s human. And it takes empathy, presence, and partnership to make it possible, and to make it work out, and work for other families that need all the support.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
I’m seeing a lot of nodding heads here that it is that human empathetic support that is so needed. So, as we bring together technology, and humans, and empathy, I’m actually going to ask about Starlink. It is really what sews this all together, really makes it possible for PERSOWN Connect to do what it does. Carey, tell me why Starlink and its connectivity has really been a game changer for delivering reliable digital health to these rural regions.
Carey Officer, President, PERSOWN Connect:
Well, we have here, even in the US, access issues to good, stable internet when you start to get into certain rural communities. When you start to expand that across the world in nations that don’t necessarily have reliable access to connectivity, it changes what we can do with the tools and technology. And so, Starlink is now in 130 countries. We’ve had wonderful conversations. They love what we’re doing by working to empower connectivity. And I will say that a couple of years ago, what we’re proposing to really integrate all of these technologies to partner with that CNT, to provide that belly-to-belly care in those local communities, just wasn’t available. And so, now that they’re in the number of countries… And I will say also the advancements, too, of AI tools and technology. Over the past couple of the years, I feel like AI has become, gosh, the word of the day when it comes to talking about advancements and innovation.
And so, how do we leverage that and the capability through the connectivity? So, if the CMT is doing a diagnostic and in real time that can be sent up, analyzed via the cloud through Starlink, and back down, we can really guide that CMT on what to do next. Does that person really need to go see a doctor? Could we do a telehealth visit? And so, it just opens the door to options, and this opportunity to connect in ways with doctors even across countries, to be able to facilitate and provide care. So, really leveraging the precious clinical care resources we have across the world, and funneling that through the use of connectivity, and these tool sets in a very efficient and affordable way.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
I want to ask the group. And Dr. Maufi, I’m going to start with you. How do you see this model improving the lives of children and future generations across the globe?
Dr. Deborah Maufi, DPM Healthcare Consultancy:
What we are aiming to do is to really improve the health outcomes of these children who are actually the future. Because if we can improve the health of these children, it means that future generations and generations actually going to be healthier, which means social, economical aspects of our lives will also be better. So, it’s an all-rounder situation. And it’s very clear that most of the debts and conditions that new children have are preventable. We have immunizations, we have medications, we have preventive interventions, other preventive interventions that can actually help these children survive and thrive. And so, this model really brings all that together. And that’s one of the groups that is going to be our key focus, actually. So, yeah, we are actually looking at future generations by focusing on children as our primary group.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Arthur, have you been focusing on Brazil, also on children? And how do you see this as affecting future generations?
Arthur Pereira, CEO, Missao Sal da Terra:
We are planning something more wide, not just children. But answering your question, I see that is a great opportunity, because some people, children, or families, they probably would never have the opportunity to be seen by a CMT if this project wasn’t working. So, I see I’m very enthusiastic of this project, because there’s a lot of communities, that if we think about if we don’t have a project like this where we get a local that’s going to be trained, that knows all the access, the families or to the communities. And if it wasn’t for the CMT, who would help that family?
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Carey, I’m wondering, are there any early stories or maybe some data points that are giving you hope for this model’s future? Because it sounds like it’s a very, as you said, sustainable model.
Carey Officer, President, PERSOWN Connect:
Yeah. I mean, I think even more now than any other time, given what we’re seeing on the philanthropy front, and what’s happening from those dollars from USAID, and other countries going into these various nations, and emerging markets, we kind of have learned two things. One, these groups are looking for sustainability. They’re looking for new ways to be able to leverage tools, technology, and financing to really take care of the needs of their populations. We know on a wide scale level, many children, especially between zero and five, really are suffering from diseases that are extraordinarily preventable. They just need the tools and the capabilities in order to be able to meet those needs and really begin to reduce child mortality rates. There’s all these data points coming together. And I will say through the conversations that we’ve had, a lot of the healthcare organizations, the health ministers in these countries are interested in saying, “How do we take better care of our populations? How do we do it with partners in a private-public partnership and relationship?”
And that’s really what we’re bringing to bear. I will say also, with the franchise model. And I’ll bring up McDonald’s for the sake of McDonald’s, because I think everybody’s very familiar with that franchise model. If you go across the world and you get a French fry, there are quality standards for being able to get that French fry. And so, if we can begin to take quality standards around healthcare, things might look a little different in Brazil. But when it comes down to diabetes and it comes down to some of these chronic conditions, there are evidence-based protocols. How do we apply that? And how do we apply those standards across the world to really improve better health, better outcomes?
And it’s amazing. If we start with children, if you start with the education of the children, and that ecosystem, and building better health outcomes and lives, they’re going to be more productive when they become adults to their communities. And so, that just adds to the whole economy. So, I think, three, four years ago, this model necessarily wasn’t possible. But now we have the opportunity to integrate the tools, the people, a model around franchising, and financing capabilities to pull a very sustainable platform that can be delivered across the world.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Carey Officer is the president of PERSOWN Connect. We also heard from Dr. Deborah Maufi, Healthcare Strategist and Advisor to PERSOWN Connect. And Arthur Pereira, CEO of Missao Sal da Terra in Uberlândia, Brazil.
MUSIC:
Well Beyond Medicine.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Thanks to Dr. Maufi, Carey, and Arthur for joining us. And thanks to you for listening. Whether it’s in our own backyard or across the world, if it has to do with children’s health, we’re covering it here on the Nemours Well Beyond Medicine podcast. And your episode ideas are always welcome. Shoot an email to [email protected] or leave a voicemail on our website, nemourswellbeyond.org. There, we encourage you to sign up for our monthly e-newsletter, explore previous episodes that you may have missed, subscribe to the podcast, and leave a review. That’s nemourswellbeyond.org.
You can also find the podcast on your favorite podcast app and on the Nemours YouTube channel. Our production team this week includes Cheryl Munn, Susan Masucci, and Lauren Teta. Join us next time as we talk about the cosmos, epic cosmos that is, and how it’s being leveraged by pediatricians to improve health outcomes for children. I’m Carol Vassar. Until then, remember, we can change children’s health for good, well beyond medicine.
MUSIC:
Let’s go-oh-oh, Well Beyond Medicine.
