Practicum project: connecting patients to hospitals

A team of students from Carnegie Mellon University Africa (CMU-Africa) spent their final semester creating a framework for an app which allows individuals to access a doctor anywhere, any time.

Irene Busah, Cynthia Iradukunda, and Eulade Muhizi, each graduating with a master’s degree in information technology last semester, worked with the company Keytogo Group Inc. to create the app for the practicum "Real-Time Interactive App Enabling Citizens to Access and Engage with Public Health Institutions."

Practicums and capstone projects provide CMU-Africa students with the opportunity to find solutions to complex tech challenges presented by companies and organizations with support from the faculty. The students focus on their specific projects within one semester. Businesses and organizations list their projects and students rank their choices in order of their preference for specific practicums.

The team completed the first phase of the company’s planned project, which is the framework for an app connecting patients with doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, insurance companies and labs. Keytogo plans to introduce the app in Canada and Rwanda.

“In many places in Africa, people have to carry their physical medical records to a hospital. With the app, we are bringing the hospital to patients,” Muhizi said. “Even if you just have a headache, you go to the hospital and stand in line for hours to see a doctor. If I visit another doctor, that doctor has no information about my medical history.”

The team focused on creating the app’s architecture ensuring that patients, hospitals, and doctors will have access to the same system and that doctors will be able to respond to patient inquiries quickly.

“Working on this project opened my eyes because I have had my own issues with health. I remember traveling from Ghana to Rwanda and being worried about how the doctor would know about my medications,” Busah said.

A big thank you to CMU-Africa. This shows the work CMU-Africa does to find practicums that address relevant issues.

Irene Busah, Recent CMU-Africa alumna

One of the challenges of the practicum was figuring out the best way to structure the app. They were tasked with considering both the patient view and the physician view. So, the team built a separate app for each audience and then developed an interface for the two sides so it operates as one seamless app. “Our AI classes helped,” Iradukunda said. “Using AI made it possible to move really fast. Before, it would have taken two practicum cohorts to build the framework. Instead, it only took one cohort.”

By the end of the second phase, Keytogo will test the system with patients contacting doctors, and doctors replying, including prescribing medications and lab tests. The app will also include payment and insurance.

The app is expected to be operational in the third phase. As patients start using the system, other aspects can be added such as medical specialists.

“Before this practicum I never imagined a doctor being able to consult a patient from miles away. This taught me that you can consult and get the patient the right care without being in a physical space,” Muhizi said. The now-alumnus, who also holds a medical degree, is currently working for the Rwanda Ministry of Health. “When the KeytoGo app starts helping patients and saving lives, we’ll be very proud,” he said.

With graduation behind them, the team members are excited to apply the skills they learned at CMU-Africa as they build their careers. For now, Iradukunda plans to continue her entrepreneurial journey. She is developing SafeSpeak, a mental health platform incubated in CMU-Africa’s Innovation Hub. She also is a software engineer for the Australian development company Formbird, where she builds high-performance business applications, among other projects. For the rest of this year, Busah will continue her work as a research associate and then plans to pursue her Ph.D.

“A big thank you to CMU-Africa,” Busah said. “This shows the work CMU-Africa does to find practicums that give us the opportunity to work on projects that address relevant issues. We are grateful for what CMU-Africa does.”