On the continuum of healthcare IT solutions, there are two distant ends. One extreme can be thought of as the complex, medical-grade enterprise EHR systems that cater to large institutions and mainly providers. The other would then be a consumer-grade solution that is designed for delivering health interventions to the masses. The latter is where Voxiva‘s offerings lie.
Voxiva provides the technology platform, professional services and support needed for designing and deploying a mobile-based health solution for consumers. When you read that, think beyond the now-hip smartphone app market. Less than a fifth of mobile handsets out there are smartphones. So to reach the remainder, the solution has to encompass relatively simpler mechanisms like feature-phone data entry, SMS and IVR.
There are a number of unique design challenges for creating an engaging public health solution that can work across any/most devices and be delivered through multiple channels to a varied set of end-users. It needs to work synchronously across web, mobile, email. It should support data entry across all kinds of user interfaces (feature phones, smartphones, different mobile operating systems, multiple-languages, etc). It needs to deliver real-time alerts (SMS, voice, email, web portal) and provide real-time analysis for decision-makers. And obviously be scalable and dependable with near-100% uptime. What appears to be a simplistic low-end IT solution on the surface is really a huge undertaking to communicate with an end-user population that is as diverse as it can be.
Voxiva’s real impressive achievement is doing a lot of what they do in international market- specially developing countries. They have created a HIV/AIDS mHealth solution for Rwanda Ministry of Health, disease surveillance solution for Peruvian military, diabetes management program in Mexico, and plenty of others. In US, their most famous offering was Text4Baby (see Multiplyd’s previous review on it), an SMS-based maternal health education service launched in early 2010. Since then, they have diversified into Text2Quit (smoking cessation) and Care4Life (diabetes management). Simple interventions, but designed for massive implementation and adoption. Which is why Voxiva continues to stand out.