In 2015, Tidiane Ball received a FIRE Africa Award for his health-related website Malisanté. After a huge success with this project, Tidiane has launched his next venture, the DocTix platform, which is revolutionising the way patients interact with doctors in Mali. Find out more below.
It was when he was still a student at the Faculty of Medicine in Bamako, Mali, that Tidiane Ball created the website Malisanté. His idea became the first portal providing medical information in Mali and was the result of a combination of his medical background and passion for new technologies. In the hospitals where he was working as intern, Tidiane realised the ordeal that patients had to go through to get information.
"Patients struggled to find adequate information about how they could get in touch with health professionals," he says. "I thought it would be great to have an online platform where patients and physicians could meet." And it was this innovation that earned his project an FIRE Africa Award in 2015. This Award included a cash prize of US$3,000 and a Travel Grant to attend the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Brazil in 2015.
DocTix
After the success of Malisanté, Tidiane has decided to innovate some more, launching a new platform, DocTix. DocTix started from the observation that patients have to wait long hours in order to get an appointment with a doctor. Many doctors are often unavailable due to a busy schedule and are often working at several medical facilities. In addition, when they do get to finally see the doctor, patients' expectations may not be met. The DocTix platform was created to provide solutions to these issues, by allowing patients to select a doctor at their convenience and review their CVs and experience online.
How it works
Before making an appointment, the patient can consult a doctor's page on DocTix, view their specialties, experience and their CV. Once they have selected the doctor they would like to see, the patient enters their information and phone number and indicates the time, date and reason of the consultation. The phone number is important because after making an appointment, the patient receives confirmation by SMS. The patient can also let their current doctor know that they are not listed on the DocTix and the doctor can then also register directly. Finally the patient has the possibility to pay consultation fees by mobile money - an app is available on Play Store.
"We strongly believe that it is through these innovative community projects that the Internet will play a critical role in furthering Africa’s social and economic development," says Vymala Thuron, AFRINIC's Head of External Relations. "The FIRE Programme and AFRINIC congratulates Tidiane Ball for his achievements and wishes him every success with his new venture!"
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About FIRE Africa
FIRE Africa provides funds for projects, initiatives, tools and platforms that harness the power of the Internet to empower the local and regional community to solve the region’s unique online communications problems. Since we ran our pilot project in 2007 to identify innovative ICT solutions to the challenges faced by local communities, FIRE Africa has grown into a fully-fledged programme that has helped over 30 initiatives in 16 countries over the last eight years.