New Research Investigates the Function of Blockchain-Primarily based Knowledge Seize & Crypto Incentives in Enhancing Affected person Outcomes
MMUST, the premier know-how and innovation college in Kenya, and Immunify.Life, a transformative and self-sustaining healthcare ecosystem secured by blockchain, has entered right into a partnership that may leverage MMUST’s educational and analysis prowess and the superior tech infrastructure of Immunify.Life to handle the difficulty of poor affected person knowledge assortment, affected person relapses, and misaligned incentives with a particular concentrate on HIV-positive sufferers in Kenya.
Within the revolutionary new research, Masinde Muliro College of Science and Know-how (MMUST) and Immunify.Life will use blockchain know-how to revamp well being knowledge seize, transmission, and sharing processes in addition to therapy incentives to enhance the well being outcomes of HIV-positive sufferers in Kenya.
This will probably be a 5-year collaborative effort, with the main objective being to enhance affected person outcomes and strengthen the efficiency of the Kenyan healthcare system. By rigorously designing medical research in numerous areas throughout Kenya and addressing key healthcare challenges confronted by a few of the nation’s most susceptible populations, MMUST and Immunify.Life hopes to precisely determine the danger elements, causes, and obstacles confronted by HIV sufferers in contracting HIV, receiving therapy, and adhering to their care regimens.
One of many key options of the primary research – which can start in August – will probably be the usage of Immunify.Life’s token reward system in bettering therapy adherence in HIV/AIDS sufferers. All the related approvals (particularly from the Institutional Ethics Committee and the Nationwide Fee for Science, Know-how & Innovation) have been granted to MMUST for utilizing Immunify.Life’s know-how platform for this research.
Whereas Kenya has achieved quite a lot of UNAID’s HIV 2020 objectives, the nation nonetheless has an extended solution to go, significantly within the areas of efficient and sustained ART (antiretroviral therapy – the first therapy for HIV/AIDS). About 70% of adults residing with HIV in Kenya entry therapy, however therapy protection for kids below the age of 15 is decrease at about 60%. In Kakamega County the place the MMUST and Immunify.Life research will probably be carried out, there are excessive prevalence, an infection, and relapse charges for males, girls, and youngsters, making it the right location for a complete, data-intensive research of HIV/AIDS and the socio-economic, coverage, and associated challenges that forestall individuals from receiving the therapies out there to them.
Research Aims
The first goal of the primary research is to research the effectiveness of incentives and paperless monitoring programs on HIV therapy outcomes within the low socio-economic setting of Kakamega County. Different targets of the research embody:
Testing the effectiveness of crypto-based token rewards on HIV/AIDS therapy adherence amongst sufferers with suspected therapy failure in Kakamega County;
Evaluating the affect of token rewards programs on healthcare suppliers;
Figuring out the socioeconomic elements that hinder the retention of HIV sufferers with suspected therapy failures;
Growing and testing an built-in, cloud-based system for bettering therapy adherence of HIV/AIDS sufferers with suspected therapy failures.
The HIV therapy outcomes research is the right alternative for MMUST, Immunify.Life, and different official companions and organizations equivalent to Kenyan healthcare coverage leaders and strategists to conduct a real-world check of the effectiveness of crypto-based rewards and blockchain-based knowledge seize and sharing on HIV therapy adherence charges. The applied sciences in play have the ability to vastly enhance therapy adherence and empower sufferers, communities, and whole nations, and this research hopes to show past any doubt the advantages of an built-in, blockchain-based strategy to tackling a few of the world’s most necessary well being challenges.
Masinde Muliro College of Science and Know-how is a technology-oriented, revolutionary college in Kenya. With about 17,000 college students enrolled, the college focuses on worldwide collaboration. It has a partnership with an NGO known as Save the Youngsters Fund which staffs 25,000 individuals in 117 nations.
The Immunify.Life workforce says its mission is to “remodel the panorama of well being administration and knowledge utilization” by strengthening world well being programs and entry to well being knowledge “by way of an incentivized knowledge seize device developed for the Immunify.Life illness register.” The group hopes to scale organically by increasing its affected person base by way of working with varied authorities entities, NGOs and donors.
