SystemOne Partners With Riders For Health to Reduce Specimen Transport Costs in High Burden Developing Countries
Cost savings up to 50% anticipated through joint technical and logistical initiatives
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. and JOHANNESBURG and ABUJA, Nigeria, Oct. 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SystemOne, the leader in disease intelligence for rapid detection and response, is partnering with Riders for Health (Riders), a logistics company specializing in medical specimen transport and related activities. The partnership is designed to reduce sample transport costs by 50% in Nigeria and other countries. This new partnership creates transparency and accountability for specimen collection and transportation, clinical results reporting, and laboratory stock management in ways that were not previously possible.
The current specimen transport situation in developing nations is grim. Diagnostic device utilization at laboratories can average as low as 14% for Tuberculosis and 31% for HIV diagnostics. Average turnaround times are between 31-90+ days in many countries (1,2), which means that diagnostic results are often not clinically relevant when they return to the patient. In addition, long turnaround times drive patients to drop out of the treatment cascade, a phenomenon known as "lost to follow up."
Together, the organizations will explore the integration of SystemOne's GxAlert™, Aspect™, and Aspect Reporter™ platforms with Riders' mobile data collection app for specimen transport tracking. They will also seek funding opportunities to allow the partnership 1) to form a network of clinics and labs for referrals, testing, sample collection, transport, and results reporting; 2) proper deployment of Riders' vehicles; and 3) new metrics for health system efficiency.
"By working with Riders, we align complementary technologies to dramatically improve time to treatment and sample transport costs," said Chris Macek, CEO, SystemOne, "The technology to do this wasn't available until just this year (2017) and we appreciate Riders' capabilities and commitment to turn a vision into reality."
"Through the partnership with SystemOne, we are certainly moving closer to affordable healthcare in Africa and this is such a delight," said Kayode Ajayi, Country Director, Riders for Health Nigeria, "We are in the technology age and to be able to incorporate technology to aid our vision makes this partnership one of a kind."
About Riders for Health:
Riders for Health is a social enterprise registered in Abuja, Nigeria, with its central office in the United Kingdom, whose mission is to provide fleet management services to health organizations to mobilize healthcare delivery activities and logistics support to enable last mile distribution of pharmaceutical and health-related supplies. Riders has offices in seven other African countries; The Gambia, Liberia, Kenya, Malawi, Lesotho, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
About SystemOne:
Founded in Massachusetts in 2012, SystemOne focuses on closing the laboratory-clinical divide in developing nations through two connected diagnostics products: Aspect™ which connects laboratory diagnostics to a national server, and Aspect Reporter™ a solar-powered IT hub for remote clinics to receive those results and submit test orders. SystemOne has offices in Springfield, Massachusetts and Johannesburg, South Africa.
The company's new disease intelligence software, Aspect®, addresses numerous infectious diseases including TB, Zika, Ebola, HIV, Malaria, Hepatitis C and more, on a host of diagnostic devices.
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References
- Kandulu, J. HIV Viral Load Supply Chain Management and Workforce Development during scale up. IAS, 21 July, 2016, Durban, South Africa.
- Lecher S, Ellenberger D, Kim AA, et al. Scale-up of HIV viral load monitoring—seven sub-Saharan African countries. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2015;64:1287–90
SOURCE SystemOne
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