MTN BUSINESS: MTN Business Pairs With Quro for Life-Changing Connectivity

The IoT has quickly become one of the most important technologies of everyday life, a relevance which will continue to gather pace as the potential of connected devices in helping people live and work smarter and gain complete control over their lives is fully realised.

It describes a system of interrelated computing devices, machines, objects, or people provided with unique identifiers (UIDs), able to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.

“The power of technology becomes so much more important when it can save lives,” MTN recognises, and the IoT is already seeing major impacts in medical and healthcare applications. “With the ability to collect, analyse and transmit health data, Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) tools are rapidly changing healthcare delivery,” says HealthTech magazine.

“For patients and clinicians, these applications are playing a central part in tracking and preventing chronic illnesses — and they’re poised to evolve the future of care.” Innovative internet-connected devices improve efficiencies, lower care costs and empower better outcomes in healthcare, thanks to major advances in wireless technology, miniaturisation and computing power. 

HEALTHCARE INNOVATIONS

“The IoMT is rapidly transforming medtech’s role and relationships within health care,” confirms Deloitte’s ‘Medtech and the Internet of Medical Things’ report. “Connected medical devices will have a profound impact on patients, clinicians and the life sciences industry.”

Founded in 2018, health tech start-up Quro Medical has seized upon the opportunity and need to take technology into critical medical and healthcare settings, crafting a platform capable of collecting patients’ vital signs, and employing to a smartphone to enable their remote monitoring.

The resulting data is then sent for processing and assessed by Quro Medical’s team of qualified health professionals, monitored on a minute-by-minute basis, 24/7.

This is the value of the IoT for Quro Medical: the ability to make an impact for many people in many locations at once, from a single location. “We combine state-of-the-art technology, clinical oversight and excellent clinical care to manage acutely ill patients in the comfort of their homes,” outlines Quro Medical CEO, Dr Vuyane Mhlomi. “This provides physicians and their patients with a safe and affordable alternative to hospital general ward or step-down facility admission.”

The Deloitte report recognises how transformative the application of such technology can be, even shaping what the future of care will hold. “Connectivity between sensors and devices aids real-time patient care, even from remote locations,” it states. “The large volume of data generated creates opportunities for new models of care and supports the delivery of medicine that is predictive, preventive, personalised and participatory.”

Quro Medical’s Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer Zikho Pali agrees that there has long been a need of an innovative approach to treating acute patients in South Africa. “The healthcare sector across the globe has experienced extreme pressure and strain caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and desperately needs digital solutions to ease many of the problems experienced in it.”

With this innovation, Quro has pioneered South Africa’s first technology-enabled hospital-at-home solution. “What technology like this means for South Africa is a fundamental transformation of healthcare as we know it,” enthuses Dr Mhlomi. “For a very long time we’ve accepted the status quo despite repeated reports that call for a change in how healthcare is being delivered. We not only improve geographical accessibility to healthcare, but also financial access.

“Quro Medical is pioneering an innovative healthcare delivery and economic model, set to leverage the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning, using key patient physiological data as digital biomarkers to not only detect but to anticipate which patients are likely to fall into trouble.”

PERFECT PARTNERSHIP

For many years, the US and Australia have led the way in IoT solutions for healthcare applications, which meant that Quro Medical faced the considerable challenge of finding reliable and affordable connectivity to make their solution work in South Africa.

When lives are at stake, network quality must be of world-class standard to enable rapid monitoring, understanding of and acting upon data, and MTN’s IoT connectivity offering banishes any prospect of delays in the data transmitted from a patient’s home to Quro Medical’s healthcare professionals.

“One of the main challenges that we faced was securing reliable and affordable internet connectivity,” Pali details, “that can keep up with the performance requirements of our technology, to enable us to reach patients in under serviced communities.

“MTN has the best network coverage in the country. For our technology to be effective and safe to be used for patient monitoring, we need to minimise disconnections or prolonged interruptions in internet connectivity. In light of this, MTN was the obvious choice for us.”

MTN Business’s Acting GM: SME Songezo Masiso details the solution that was devised as a result of Quro’s approach. “To address the client’s requirements, we provided Quro Medical with mobile data connectivity in the form of MTN Made for Business Data S++ offering 6GB per month.

“We also provide Quro Medical with a daily usage report to address the client’s requirement to manage the data available,” Masiso expands. This report provides information on patient health as well as the amount of data used every day on each patient, generated through MTN’s telemetry platform.

“For our solution to work optimally and be safe for patient monitoring we need connectivity which is reliable, and to minimise prolonged disruptions,” Pali delineates, “and there hasn’t been a single moment of lapsed connectivity.

“We chose MTN as a connectivity partner because of its reach, but also the enthusiasm with which it embraces technology and how open it has been to an innovation like ours, adapting and tailoring its offering to meet our requirements.”

MTN REIGNS SUPREME

At a time when MTN’s provision has to stand up to the strictest scrutiny, it has again been officially recognised as the undisputed top network in South Africa. Following its retention of the crown in 2020, the first quarter of 2021 has again seen it outstrip the competition, with average download speeds of 64.29Mbps dwarfing the 32.76Mbps in second place.

“We have continued to maximise on the opportunity created by the increased spectrum, to expand and enhance our world-class network,” commented MTN SA CEO Godfrey Motsa.

“We are honoured as MTN to witness the continued growth in our network quality, and overall network performance. We have managed to constantly widen the gap between ourselves and our competitors to give our customers a superior experience,” added MTN SA Chief Technology and Information Officer, Giovanni Chiarelli. “We will continue to put our customer’s first by maintaining the high standards we have set for ourselves.”

In partnering with a network of this calibre, Quro Medical will obtain the high-quality, reliable internet connectivity required for its IoT ecosystem to function optimally, an astute choice bolstered by the $1.1 million recently secured in seed funding. “This investment will enable us to accelerate our growth and meet the increased demand from our clients,” Dr Mhlomi explained.

“We are focused on saving lives and enhancing patient care. The technology is the enabler, making all of this possible,” he added, as Quro seeks to become the home healthcare service of choice in Southern Africa. “As a young and black-owned company set to be a leader in healthcare innovation in Africa, we pride ourselves in a partnership that will help grow the future of public health.

“The fact that Quro Medical has partnered with South Africa’s best mobile network will provide us with the reliability and quality of connectivity that we require to provide South Africans with high quality healthcare at affordable rates,” concludes Zikho Pali. “Quality and affordability don’t have to be mutually exclusive, and that is what our partnership with MTN signifies.”