BantuHealthThe text-message version
Health help by text, for any phone.
Most people in our cities have a basic phone and little or no data. So the same help our nurse's assistant gives is also available as a plain text message: no app, no internet, no smartphone.
- Appointment reminders in the patient's own language.
- Clinic hours and where to go.
- "What did the nurse say?" A short, plain reminder of the nurse's instruction, approved by the clinic.
- Reply HELP and a nurse calls back.
English demo, scripted. The Bantu-language versions are the goal and appear here only after native-speaker review.
How it works
Simple for the patient. Safe for the clinic.
1. The nurse decides
The nurse or community health worker chooses what to send. The assistant drafts it in the patient's language and the nurse approves it.
2. The patient gets a text
One short message, under 160 characters where possible, in the language they chose. It works on any phone.
3. A person is one reply away
If the message is unclear, the patient replies HELP and a nurse follows up. Nothing is left to the machine alone.
- Tell someone what illness they have, or what medicine to take
- Change a dose or a date the clinic has not approved
- Store a patient's health record in a message
Languages
Planned in the languages people speak.
Text messages are short, so a wrong word does more harm. Each language is turned on only after native speakers have reviewed it and it has passed our tests. See how a language goes live.