Clafiya is bringing hospital-to-home services to rural communities in Nigeria

Clafiya, a digital platform that links patients in rural and semi-urban areas to Community Health Workers (CHWs). It provides basic health services to people from the comfort of their homes.

The co-founder of the company Jennie Nwokoye said With our USSD code, allows Nigerians with limited access to basic health services to register, make payments, and request for the nearest registered community health worker to provide home-based services.  

Clafiya makes use of AI to apply predictive analysis to USSD messages that are geotagged for disease surveillance’ of emerging disease outbreaks in remote and rural areas. It also allows the policymakers and government agencies to make data-driven decisions on the allocation of resources in regions that are impacted.

The platform can be accessed in two ways. Registration and appointment scheduling process. To make use of the USSD, a potential customer will dial codes *347*58# and proceed to answer some personal questions. After registering on the platform, an individual will receive a text message and be guided to buy a plan.

Clafiya is made of 4 different plans Basic (Pay As You Go) which costs ₦2000 ($4.9). This plan allows people to make payments out of their pockets. Jennie said ‘’ We are hoping to penetrate these communities where allow people to subscribe to a quasi-insurance plan with a starting price at ₦3000 ($7.3) for one plan. It covers all the primary care services that we provide except the maternity care plan.’’

“We’re hoping that as we penetrate these communities, people would subscribe to what I would call the quasi insurance plan, where the prices start at ₦3000 ($7.3) for a single plan but that covers all of the primary care services that we are providing except the maternity care plan.”

The maternity package costs ₦3500 ($8.5). The most expensive medical package is the family plan at ₦5000 ($12.2). 

Testing stage and gaining access

‘Itoro said “Clafiya wanted to meet the needs of populations that the majority of systems have forgotten. That’s why we decided to do home-based services to bring those services to people’s doorsteps.”

Jennie stated that Clafiya was developed to meet customers wherever they are. During the field and initial testing stage, we discovered that many Nigerians specifically women were afraid to go to health care facilities. This was because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘’We plan on developing a solution that can work for every Nigerian even for those with high socioeconomic status.’’

A large percentage of Nigerians are still not connected to the internet. So a lot of people are left out with the growth of the internet business.

 ‘’Everyone is developing applications, right? And the average Nigerians, have a phone but may not have a smartphone, if you have a smartphone, you may not have data, if you have data, you may have network issues that limit internet access and to the service. USSD is the closest way to read the minority population.’’

The Clafiya team has conducted their research, tested their tools, and according to them, one major thing people like about the USSD service is that it allows them to drive their health. They can call healthcare workers who provide the services and take charge of who attends to them and the time.