Digitization is one of the most important aspects of preserving information, facilitating the delivery of information to citizens, and providing them with easy services. "Reaya", an intensive care application, that provides a booking system for care in various medical sections, such as central care, heart care, catheterization, intermediate care, child care, corona care, nursery, and critical cases department.
"Trendify" interviewed the founder of the application, Dr. Ahmed Orabi, 29, orthopedic doctor at Al-Ahly Bank Hospital in Katameya.
Launched by the end of January 2021, the idea came as a result of the suffering of parents with their children in the search for intensive care units which takes a long time. In addition, the governmental hospital number “137” is usually crowded with requests, which sparked the idea in Dr. Orabi’s mind.
The main factor contributing to the creation of this app is the black market, “care brokers” suggest low quality care with higher than usual prices, utilizing the fact that many people do not have knowledge or experience in this field, and do not know what the normal prices are, as well as not knowing where to look for suitable options in the first place.
And through the application, a hospital evaluation and review service is provided.
At first, they found that the cost of the application exceeded 150 thousand pounds, which was difficult to implement, so they decided to divide the project into shares, with a starting budget of 150 thousand EGP to 200 thousand. The budget included the app programming, company and marketing. These shares were divided into 3 stages, founders, shareholders and investors.
How does the app work?
The user chooses the type of intensive care, and the nearest hospitals will appear to the patient by location. After choosing a hospital, the user uploads their medical report to be sent to the chosen hospital for evaluation. They evaluate the cases to figure out if there is a treatment available in this hospital or not, or they ask for more explanatory reports, and upon approval, the reservation is confirmed. All the hospital’s details then appear in terms of evaluation, address, telephone number and prices.
Critical cases have a separate section on the app, and patient reports are sent to all hospitals that accept critical cases.
Since ambulances are affiliated with the Egyptian Ambulance Authority, they are affiliated with the state, and there is no shortcoming from them, so they are not available in the application because they provide an excellent service.
“We went to certain hospitals and presented our project to them asking for their participation in the app, and we now have 70 hospitals in Cairo and Giza, and a few in Alexandria and Qalyubia,” said Dr. Orabi.
“The app registered 150 users and 10 cases used our service, this is because it is still in its initial stage,” added Dr. Orabi.
The app provides this service with private hospitals only, as the government hospital system is much more difficult than private hospitals. However, they are planning to work on a project to present to the ministry of Health, to include the “137” service to the application.
“We targeted class B hospitals as it is the most suitable for us, meanwhile Class A are not requested by many, and class C hospitals do not have the facilities required for digital marketing,” said Dr. Orabi. However, Dr. Orabi added that they are planning to include services from all classes to serve all groups.
Future Plans
They plan to add sections for laboratories, radiology and surgical operations. The purpose is to provide a service different from the “Vezeeta” application as it is specialized in clinics, and we specialize in hospitals in all their departments.