Navilluso Medical, a healthcare company is a finalist in the Callaghan Innovation Māori Innovation Award and in the Kiwibank Hi-Tech Innovative Services Award.
The company was established by Kaitaia GP, Dr Lance O’Sullivan and his wife Tracy O’Sullivan
Both nominations are due in large part to iMOKO™, a healthcare software program which utilises technology to deliver high quality basic health services.
iMOKO started out as a grassroots initiative.
“Members of my community approached me at my practice, telling me they couldn’t get access to the healthcare services they needed,” Lance explains.
So iMOKO was developed by Navilluso Medical to target communities with high needs and vulnerable children.
Lance figured if he could get the right technology within the communities, and train locals to use it he would not only reduce staff costs but increase care.
iMOKO “is is a digital healthcare platform where we are actually wanting to democratise health care by putting simple technologies in to the hands of whanau to achieve better health outcomes.”
The iMOKO programme starts by placing smart tablets with iMOKO software into schools and early child care centres.
Lance and his team train approved people to conduct health assessments of common child health problems, such as skin and dental infections, strep throat, and head lice.
He believes the relationships already established between kaiawhina and tamariki is beneficial when assessing the health of vulnerable children.
So from a “kanohi ki te kanohi” point of view, its actually about optimising who’s the best person to be the face of health care.
Around 6000 children across 110 sites from all over the country are in the iMOKO database to date.
Lance says this is only the beginning and his ultimate goal is to have 400,000 children accessing health care through iMOKO.
Source