Inclusive Innovation Journey Connects Eight Telehealth Businesses Ready to Pilot their Business-to-Government Models in Colombia

From international mentoring to forging partnerships for telehealth in Colombia, UNDP-BCtA, UNDP Colombia, Accelerator Labs and MiLab’s programme on Inclusive Innovation Journey delivers key results for SDG 3: Good health and well-being.

Natal care delivered through telehealth facility @Adobestock

The BCtA-led programme on the Inclusive Innovation Journey (IIJ) in Colombia ‘Más Vida: Acelerando la Telesalud en Colombia,’ wraps up with eight telehealth companies ready to deliver innovative, tech-based services to the public sector. IIJ also opened diverse opportunities for the participating businesses – from international training with business-to-government (B2G) experts, to potential private and public partnerships.

The programme, which ran in partnership with UNDP Colombia and Accelerator Labs, alongside MiLab, iNNpulsa Colombia’s govtech innovation laboratory, aimed to start an ecosystem of local entrepreneurs with inclusive telehealth solutions around natal, prenatal, and post-natal care that could provide the government viable options of essential services providers sensitized to the needs of low-income populations.

Sara Ferrer, UNDP Resident Representative in Colombia, highlighted the importance of how the programme’s collaborative work among BCtA, the UNDP Country Office, and Colombia’s public institutions became key in achieving results for SDG 3: Good health and well-being. “As we have seen in the recent times (referring to the pandemic), the alliances between different actors are highly appreciated and they conduce to better achievement of results. We are very thankful to BCtA for selecting Colombia as the country to pilot the Inclusive Innovation initiative. We have been working closely with private sector entities, and this initiative allows us to enhance our work concerning SDG 3,” said Ferrer.

“We hope to keep working closely with BCtA and Colombia’s government institutions and promote better business models to maximize contributions to the 2030 agenda,” she added.

On the same note, iNNpulsa Colombia’s President, Francisco Noguera, also emphasized the importance of IIJ at the national level, which sees inclusion as a key element in bringing essential services to far-flung areas of the country. “Colombia is effectively consolidating itself as a country that places its entrepreneurs, its innovators, and collaborative efforts like this programme at the service of great national purposes. One of these great purposes is the purpose of inclusion; It is the purpose of bringing essential services to the most remote areas of our country,” said Noguera.

The Inclusive Innovation Journey sought to advance business solutions for development challenges and connect them to local government bodies that need innovative, tech-driven solutions to reach underserved populations. In Colombia, the telehealth sector was recognized as an area of focus due to the increased demand of telehealth services caused by COVID-19 and the need to improve the quality and coverage of such services across the country.

The eight enterprises, BrainCo Telemedicina, COCO AI & e-Health, IPS HolaDr, Lifeplus, Maternar, Omnivida S.A.S, Saludtools and Sitidoctor, were selected from dozens of proposals due to their unique and specialized approaches to delivering maternal or pregnancy-related health services. These companies have set a clear example of commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals.

“We believe that medical consultation should be accessible, affordable, easy to use and a pleasant experience for all patients regardless of their level of income, who they are or where they are,” said Lucy Jun, Co-founder of TuMédico, an initiative at Saludtools that provides immediate, affordable, and high-quality medical consultation to underserved communities. 

The need to advance B2G services for telehealth in Colombia

It was reported in a study conducted by Colombia’s Ministry of Health and Social Protection (MinSalud) and the firm Haptica that telehealth should be a focus area due to the heightened demand for telehealth facilities as triggered by Covid-19 pandemic. Given that 90% of Colombian households live at the base of social and economic pyramid, with family income of less than COP 4 million per month, these individuals lacked the financial resources to access healthcare, particularly, specialized care. Thus, telemedicine provided efficient access to specialized healthcare for vulnerable populations through reduced costs and consultation times, increase in productivity of health specialists, and led to wider adoption of preventative healthcare, as the study noted.

Despite seeing increase in telehealth consultations—from a pre-pandemic rate of 50,000 per month in March 2020 to 3.81 million per month in March 2021—MinSalud observed that a significant gap still remains in the reach of telehealth services to the rural poor.

The Inclusive Innovation Journey provided a platform where Colombian government institutions like MinSalud can pull out alternative scalable solutions in order to bridge the gaps and divides, and work towards extensive and more inclusive delivery of telehealth services.

“Alliances with the private sector, as well as their active engagement, is essential in the execution of the goals and targets for the 2030 agenda,” said Lina Fernandez, Private Sector Director of UNDP Colombia. According to Fernandez, “we (referring to UNDP Colombia) aim to promote a more inclusive business model that aspires to solve economic, social, or environmental problems that we face as a society. This program (referring to IIJ) helps us—UNDP Colombia—to be recognized as a partner to private sector companies in creating more effective and scalable solutions, and in connecting them with the public sector or investors. 

The Inclusive Innovation Journey was delivered via 13 individual sessions totaling 32 hours of capacity-building training under three main components: Getting to know the telehealth sector and its end users; adapting business operation processes and key message to serve government needs; and familiarizing the businesses with impact measurement and management. 

A space for learning and dialogue between public and private actors

As part of this training, companies were given the opportunity to learn from international experts in the field through one-on-one mentorships. For Alejandro Pacheco, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative in Colombia, the program provided the Colombian companies a space for knowledge-sharing, where they looked at experiences from other countries and learned best practices from it. He said: “We believe that sharing knowledge is important because it allows other entrepreneurs to understand how to face challenges, and this will help them make better decisions based on previous experiences, capitalize on the opportunities, and maximize the benefits that these new B2G models bring to the society and the 2030 agenda.”

From these varied perspectives, the participants were also presented with different means of securing capitals and attracting impact-focused investments for their telehealth businesses.

Moreover, with several Colombian government institutions participating in sessions, both sides were able to discuss recurring challenges, talk about common solutions and take advantage of each other’s offer on how to advance telehealth in Colombia.

The expert insights from public sector representatives allowed for participants to get a better understanding of the challenges the government is facing, as well as the opportunities that the ministries can offer them. For iNNpulsa Colombia’s Noguera, this project allows both the public and private sectors to accelerate a vision of building together a health-tech ecosystem. Noguera talked of “an ecosystem of health, technology, and innovation that allows public and private sectors to accelerate solutions, and demonstrate that it is possible to build sustainable, scalable, and profitable businesses that put impact and inclusion at the center of their value proposition.”

Many participants saw this as an invaluable and rare chance to carry out dialogue with the government and start partnerships that can generate impact in targeted sectors.

“Having the opportunity to interact with the government has been of great value to transform our business model to respond to the challenges of the government, to understand both the opportunities and the restrictions of contracting with the state,” said Camilo Barrera, Director científico of BrainCo Telemedicina.

Similarly, Paola Pimiento Higuera, Co-founder of Maternar believes that the IIJ allowed for opportunities to present viable and innovative solutions to local and national governments. “It makes our company visible and able to contribute to the construction of our country within the framework of the proposed development programmes to meet its goals and objectives,” she said.

Providing visibility and networking opportunities

Throughout the programme different media opportunities and participation in events allowed increased visibility for the companies with both potential investors and fellow businesses.

Several enterprises found potential partners in their fellow participants. Mentor company Bive, for example, was able to pair with two other companies to jointly use their technology for work in rural communities, while Saludtools and BrainCo Telemedicina commenced discussion on how they can improve each other’s telehealth services and strengthen their competitive advantage.

Another highlight of the session was a speed-dating event where the participants connected with potential investors and strategic allies of the impact ecosystem.

"With the support of investors and different public entities in the health area, these entrepreneurs will continue working on the construction of scalable models, integrated into the country's National Health Strategy," pointed out Pedro Cortez, BCtA Inclusive Innovation Programme Analyst who facilitated the sessions in person in Bogotá.

On Inclusive Innovation and Impact Management: Grassroot perspectives

Luciana Aguiar, BCtA’s Programme Manager, stressed on why Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) is critical for entrepreneurs and policymakers so they can monitor the impact generated by their telehealth solutions that are being pivoted. Aguiar pointed out that “Governments and entrepreneurs need to understand the impact generated by the innovative solutions serving the low-income population. Integrating impact management in business practices enhances the impact integrity of realized investments and adds transparency on how businesses contribute to achieving the SDGs”

Impact Measurement and Management (IMM), another key service offered by BCtA, aims to quantify the positive and negative effects—whether direct or indirect, and intentional or unintentional—of a company on the people and the planet.

Entrepreneurs in the cohort have been leading inclusive business models as they are already integrating underserved populations in their value chains and are measuring their impact. The challenge now, however, is how to integrate the idea of inclusivity continuously and consistently in the business to achieve the SDGs, and at the same time, keep an operations-focused and impact-conscious approach in running the enterprise to ensure steady income since they are all focusing in scaling their business.

In addition, as innovation entails the application of modern and digital tools, its use by the target clients could be hampered by factors like fear or lack of knowledge about technology.

Hence, the entrepreneurs also call for spreading awareness of these tech-based solutions among underserved populations. “Currently, there are various great telehealth products and services that are available and accessible—like TuMédico, but there are restrictions due to lack of awareness in telehealth. Therefore, it is important to raise awareness about telehealth first, lower the fear of new technology or innovation, and increase trust that it works for the end-users,” said Jun (Saludtools).

Nonetheless, with the support coming from the Ministry of Health and other agencies of the government, the private sector in the form of fellow participants and facilitators, and international organizations, this integration towards sustainability—led by the eight participants—has a well-defined future.

“The programme allowed us to better understand our company, promote what we are offering, and reach more people. We have found allies that already have everything to reach more people,” pointed out Ruby Ariza, Gerente commercial at Sitidoctor.

For many of the companies, Inclusive Innovation Journey has opened the opportunity for them to present their solutions to local and national governments, and in the process, make themselves visible and accessible to more underserved population.