Kenya launches hospital equipment repair App

Hospitals can now link up with biomedical engineers near them through a mobile application, for repair of equipment.

This is after the Association of Medical Engineering of Kenya on Friday launched Africare.

The app seeks to save on costs that would otherwise see some stalled or broken down equipment get discarded due to lack of an expert or spare parts.

It was launched by AMEK council in partnership with All Trusted Medical, a company based in Hong Kong.

The application can be downloaded from Google Play Store.

Micheal Ondieki, a software engineer and data scientist said the uber-like app, which took eight months to develop, will help assign biomedical engineers to equipment should they break down.

Once the user logs in, they will be able to place an order by being prompted to put the equipment’s name, model and issues faced.

They will also include audio, video and images for the medical engineer to have a clear idea as to what has gone wrong with the equipment.

“Once the order has been placed, the app matches them to a biomedical engineer nearest to them based on a 50km radius on geo-location.

“The user will then be prompted with a screen that will provide an estimate cost of repair,” Ondieki said.

The user will proceed to make an initial payment through PayPal, card or M-Pesa, after which the engineer will make their way to the location.

The engineer will get the balance after the equipment has been repaired.

Should the biomedical engineer attached to a case reject the job, the request will be returned to the queue and re-assigned to another expert.

“There are remote areas where we don’t have a lot of biomedical engineers present. In that case, users will be prompted to select visible engineers and set up an appointment with them," Ondieki said.

AMEK secretary general Millicent Aloo said the vision was motivated by the recognition that biomedical equipment are capital intensive and procurement of the same is not an easy task for hospitals.

This will therefore help hospitals cut costs by introducing more budget friendly alternatives and contribute towards making healthcare more affordable.

“Kenya was leading in biomedical engineering in Africa some years back but now it's lagging behind South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt,” Aloo said.

She said the app will see the management of medical equipment improve greatly since nagging issues will be addressed.

The issues, she says, include response time, availability of trained biomedical engineers and delays in treatment in health facilities.

(Edited by Bilha Makokha)