By Gabriel Ewepu

In this interview, the Chief Executive Officer, CEO, Vannin Healthcare, Oliver van Veen, said the healthcare system in Nigeria and other African countries is a big concern to them, therefore, had rolled out interventions to change the narrative, while speaking on other issues.

Excerpts:

Can you introduce yourself?

Oliver van Veen, Chief Executive Officer, CEO, Vannin Healthcare. We have been in the medical industry for over 15 years supporting governments globally and private hospitals worldwide. Our core product is our Electronic Health Record which is now implemented in 300 hospitals in 14 countries. We manage over 9,000,000 patients worldwide. 

Another side to our business is full turnkey solutions with our EHR integrated within the projects, structuring debt financing for these large turnkey projects and lastly mobile hospitals. 

What’s your organization all about?

Our goal is to bring quality healthcare at a reasonable price. We live by a saying that we want to become the Ikea of healthcare. It’s our passion to offer governments key healthcare solutions that may take years to implement at a faster but also more affordable way. 

What really inspired this initiative for Nigeria and other African countries?

Africa we see as the new frontier for huge change. As we start to work with various governments in Africa we want to raise the benchmark to an international top standard. 

What are the gaps in the health sector in Africa?

Funding is needed to scale the infrastructure to be able to cater for the ever growing population. Africa probably has the highest birth rate globally, people are living longer and hence have more healthcare complications. 

Land mass is vast and in general most African nations are not digitalised in the healthcare space (This is not a problem for Africa but also the world, a large part of European hospitals are still working with pen and paper).

To tackle these challenges, our approach is to offer debt financing at rates probably not possible on their own to build the necessary infrastructure.

We approach the land mass issue but selling mobile hospitals able to cover large areas easily for more primary care. We approach the digitalisation issue with our EHR, digitalisation is important for not just cost saving and efficiency but for better care.

For the 50 Million GBP of medical consumables pledge we are doing now, this is aside from the above. We always hold a vast stockpile of medical goods including consumables. 

We see online there are numerous outbreaks of disease and one of the best ways to try to tackle this is with consumables. Due again to the population size a small volume will not make a big difference.

How many countries do you operate in Africa?

We are not limited by one particular country. We are covering all of Africa bar any country that is sanctioned and we cannot work in due to our affiliation with the UK Government.

What’s your collaboration with the governments in African countries you have your operations?

Most of our collaborations are on a government level to digitalise the healthcare system. For example we are currently digitalising the whole country of Gabon and speaking to several other countries about the same thing as they have heard tremendous feedback.

How much investments have you done so far in Africa?

This is a new continent for us, there are several contracts currently in negotiation that I cannot speak on but our total pipeline in Africa exceeds 200 Million USD.

How will you galvanize the health sector and services in these countries you operate in?

Wherever we operate we want to work with local partners. They always know their country better than we do, we just want to complement that with the highest international standards at an affordable rate.

Is technology transfer part of your plans under your initiative?

Of course, health tech is a huge market and with it being at the core of our business it’s one of our primary focuses.

What are the contents of the first consignment that have left for Africa?

Medical consumables, surgical gowns in particular that are reinforced, sterile with two towels.

Do you think your intervention can reduce the number of Africans traveling abroad for healthcare services?

This will take time. A big issue we see is there is so much talent in Africa but due to the infrastructure not being adequate they move to other countries where they can work in better conditions. I think if there was a choice to work at home in better conditions they wouldn’t blink.

On the patient side, we are not just trying to deliver quality healthcare but when we say international standards we mean the global benchmark for healthcare. 

Hitting this goal we believe would instil confidence in the upper class within Africa but also attract healthcare tourism as a revenue generator for the continent. For example, there are very few hospitals globally running at a HIMMS Stage 6 standard, when we implement our EHR System we run at HIMMS Stage 6 as standard but can easily implement to HIMMS Stage 7. 

HIMMS is a global benchmark for digitalisation and efficiency, it runs from 1 (The lowest) to 7 (The highest). There is no government globally running at a HIMMS Stage 7 standard for every hospital, it is our goal in the next few years to do this with a country in Africa. We know when we do this it will not just put Africa on the map but ourselves as pulling something noon else has ever done.

What do you see in Africa’s health sector in the nearest future?

The future is bright, challenging for sure but we want to at least try to make our mark on this exciting continent.