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Andrew Davies, CEO of Signapps. Photo supplied.
- A South African app won a major UK tender to service the British NHS.
- Called Signapps, it aims to streamline communication in hospitals, and its implementation has been accelerated by the spread of Covid-19.
- Despite large amounts of local funding and trials, the South African Department of Health has not responded with similar vigor to the app.
- For more stories, visit Business Insider South Africa.
A South African healthcare app won a rand 66 million contract to provide service to the UK’s National Health Service for the next two years, with the option to renew it for another twelve months after that. But despite significant development funding from the Department of Commerce and Industry, the app has yet to be widely deployed in local state hospitals.
The app, called Signapps, belongs to SA Healthcent’s healthcare technology startup, which was established by former Mxit COO Andrew Davies in 2017. Signapps is essentially a secure messaging platform built for the healthcare industry. health, and the creators say it is designed to increase operational efficiency. generate additional revenue and improve patient satisfaction by optimizing referral and feedback processes, and by interacting with patients and their families.
Signapps. Photo supplied.
It will now be part of Britain’s goal to phase out pagers in its healthcare system by the end of 2021, and recent developments in relation to Covid-19 have accelerated the implementation of this.
Under the UK government plan, first published in February 2019, NHS trusts are to phase out pager use by the end of 2021, and “all hospitals are expected to have plans and infrastructure in place to ensure that this is possible by the end of September 2020 ”.
The spread of Covid-19 brought this expiration date forward by six weeks, and according to Signapps CEO Andrew Davies, the NHS granted this advance based, in part, on its successful testing in a South African context.
“The contract with the NHS is a huge blow to us as a South African company, showing that our product engineering teams can create products to compete with the best internationally,” says Davies.
It was launched in South Africa in 2017 in part thanks to a R5 million grant from the South African Department of Commerce and Industry and a Rand 1 million grant from the Gauteng Innovation Center.
“Signapps was originally born in a state hospital: Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg General. Following this success, the South African government invested grants in Signapps in the early stages of its development.
“This funding came at an important time for our business and we are grateful to DTI and the Gauteng Innovation Center who had the vision to see the potential positive impact of this technology for state hospitals in particular and to support our team. “Davies says.
The app was tested in several other local settings, including the Chris Hani Baragwanath Pediatric Burn Unit, stroke units within the Life Hospital group, and in the Intercare Group subacute care, and was provided free of charge to government hospitals in South Africa during Covid-19.
Despite this initial support, Davies says they have had little success with its implementation in South Africa’s state hospitals.
“During the last three years, we have communicated on some occasions with the National Department of Health to discuss the possibility of implementing this in other hospitals, without success,” he says.
Because of this, Davies says they have shifted their focus to selling Signapps to the private healthcare sector, which he says “was easier to market and where we have had considerable success locally.”
In parallel, they deployed Signapps in various state hospitals, either free of charge or with funding from foundations or NGOs.
“This culminated in us offering a free version of the product called Signapps Serve to state hospitals in February 2020, which has been well accepted but with limited support and integrations,” says Davies.
Davies adds that they are still actively looking for ways to roll out the app in more local hospitals, in particular Covid-19 isolation wards.
“We believe that our homegrown technology has the potential to be recognized as a great success story for South African innovation and ultimately improve outcomes for all patients in South Africa by providing better links to care. This potential has been realized by the NHS in Great Britain, and hence the reason they have signed a contract with us, ”he says.
Signapps. Photo supplied.
Davies believes that the contract with the NHS and the proof-of-concept on the ground in South Africa means that the locally developed application can compete on a global scale.
“The award demonstrates that our platform, which has already proven its worth in South Africa, can withstand international scrutiny and be selected for use in one of the world’s largest national health systems,” he says.
Business Insider South Africa reached out to the Health Department for comment on the matter, but has yet to receive a response.
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