La Ruche Health is a smart healthcare platform that provides communities in remote areas with easy access to healthcare support in the form of advice via text and voice.

It offers direct access to vital healthcare information via WhatsApp, facilitates appointments to vetted medical practitioners, and digitises medical records for smooth patient onboarding.

Ivorian computer engineer Rory Assandey and his team have developed a health-focused generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot, Kiko, to help people seeking medical assistance. Kiko is accessible via WhatsApp. The AI facilitates organic healthcare conversations via voice and text with patients about their symptoms. The platform also includes an electronic medical records (EMR) web portal for practitioners to onboard patients and digitally document their patient encounters.

The platform functions as the patient’s’ first point of remote contact with the healthcare network, removing location and cost barriers to care. After interacting with Kiko, which will screen in a conversational manner, patients can book an appointment with a vetted healthcare provider in less than 30 seconds.

La Ruche Health has integrated its health AI with its own EMR cloud-based app and application programming interface, allowing for seamless patient hand-offs between the AI and the providers on the platform. The AI has been trained in close collaboration with local and international medical advisors.

The EMR has a user-friendly interface focused on gestures and swipes, enabling healthcare providers to easily register new patients with minimal manual data input. This is facilitated by seamless transfer of patient data to providers and automated patient record creation by Kiko.

Consultation reports, lab results and billing information are securely stored in the EMR. Assandey and his team have also digitised manual referrals, case management and reporting processes in the healthcare sector, saving time and money.

La Ruche Health addresses the pressing need for better and more convenient access to healthcare in Côte d’Ivoire, where 48% of the population lives in rural areas and 43% do not have basic reading and writing skills.

The innovation’s pilot reached more than 1,000 patients, demonstrating a 5% chat-to-appointment conversion; an 84% improvement in patient waiting times; and a 300% increase in clinicians’ daily capacity.

The innovation cuts time, resources and personnel costs in healthcare, while enhancing data visibility and transparency.

By October 2023, 5,399 users had engaged with the health AI via WhatsApp, and 15 medical professionals across five healthcare facilities were using La Ruche Health EMR.