On being a panellist + hackathon judge for the first time
Growing is about peeling off layers of assumptions and beliefs that have festered too long for new, more accurate and progressive ones.
Yesterday, that happened again, but the first time is something that's stuck in mind. To be honest, I didn't know it at the time and only thought it was insane.
If I remember correctly, I was 13/14 years old and my secondary school was invited to a writing and debate competition. Everyone knew I could write and I remember having a pile of biology notebooks at my desk because I was also good at drawing.
We spent the days before the event preparing for it and I was really only focused on writing as fast as I could to lay out as many points to win — I'd failed to do this in a previous competition, so I wasn't going to experience a repeat.
But the funniest thing happened when we got to African Church Grammar School (AFRO GRAMS). The organisers changed the rule and we needed to present the same person for both categories. And because I'd already participated in the writing category, I automatically would be representing my school in debate. I never prepared for it and I wasn't the greatest at facing unfamiliar crowds.
Must we participate?, I asked. I didn't prepare for this.
I even thought of running away till the end of the debate competition, but the teachers were really persistent and their assurances won. The next school to present is Front Foundation College. It took ~3 minutes to leave my seat and each step to the stage was very heavy. Then it took another 2 minutes to speak after your time starts now.
At second place is Front Foundation College
Everyone from my school was shocked when we heard that. I'd only read our argument few minutes before stepping on the stage and the person I lost to is my childhood friend who'd represented Ogun State in debate competitions across the country and outside. I expected her to win, so it wasn't a surprise, but coming second to her? That wasn't even a dream.
More than ten years later, I found myself in a similar position — prepared, but inexperienced. Prior to yesterday, I hadn't been a panelist, but the thing that's different this time are the many seemingly insignificant moments across the years.
Here are two examples. At Famasi Africa, we have Knowledge Sharing Sessions (KSS) where we're assigned topics to research on and present on Friday before we read the week's memo. The second example is something we implemented recently. On Mondays, Faruq shares an article to read ahead of the 10am call and we spend the first 20-30 minutes discussing it in this format:
What:
Sometimes, we spend an hour discussing about what we've read and both of these have made it easier for me to just talk. So, yesterday, when I was going to the stage, my steps weren't heavy and I wasn't as anxious as I was years ago. My folks have said it didn't feel like my first time on stage, which is good to know. I do find the topic really interesting and I'd be expanding on a few things I couldn't touch on, mostly because of time.
Pharmacists as care coordinators
Our belief at Famasi Africa about the future of pharmacists is really simple. We think that pharmacists will be responsible for care coordination because they're the first point of contact for care. This is why everyone who orders from Famasi will interact with a Care Specialist, who is always a pharmacist.
Today, people already visit pharmacies for first aid and guidance, but it's not at a systemised level where pharmacies can directly interact with other healthcare sectors.
i dey go pharmacy
— super gremlin ✝️ (@favour_omolaolu) September 30, 2024
Imagine that the pharmacy in the above scenario needs to refer the case to the hospital for extensive care. They'll just tell him to go to the hospital and that'd be it. But, what if there's a system that lets them do more than this? Where it's possible for the pharmacy to contact the appropriate doctor directly to let them know they have this case and they're referring the patient.
This will (1) make it easier for the patient to get the care because he now know where to go (2) make it quicker for the doctor to attend to the patient because they already have a good background into the case from the pharmacy (3) reduce the number of people going to the hospital and doctors get to quickly deal with more severe cases.
But for it to work and not overwhelm pharmacists as is currently the case, it means providing the tools needed to make this experience seamless. We've built it into Dispensary, such that pharmacies can record encounters and communicate with doctors and facilitate consultations, even from rural areas where hospitals are severely limited in resources.
In 2015 when I first had swimmer's ear, I was in Ilorin, so I didn't know where to go. I didn't even know what was happening — I woke up to my ear blocked, so I was basically deaf. The questions that kept playing in my mind was who will I speak with at the hospital?, which part will I go?, which doctor am I going to see?
Thankfully, my roommates were anatomy students and they knew about the Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) department at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH). But imagine they weren't. I may have gone to another clinic first, spent some minutes there, then they'd tell me the clinic to go, all of which would've made that experience as chaotic as it commonly is today.
It's why making the healthcare sector interoperable is highkey for us, focusing on pharmacies, because as I mentioned yesterday, the reason we're able to send money to each other within minutes is because the banks have created a system to communicate with each other. The minute you don't get credited, you'll start squeezing your face and asking have they debited you?
Yet, it takes an insane amount of time to receive the care you need at the hospital because your HMO needs to verify your code. And it's almost impossible to use your HMO subscription to get medications at the pharmacy because there's no infrastructure powering that communication.
A subset of this challenge is the unwillingness to collaborate between pharmacies and HMOs because the latter pays at least after 30 days and former needs money to restock and stay alive. While working in Ops last month, I spoke with pharmacies in Amukoko and their initial responses were about not working with HMOs. Why? Because of payment.
For us, Dispensary makes it possible to do next-day settlement, so this barrier is lifted. Pharmacies get to grow with Dispensary and people who need their medications get it as required. However, prior to Dispensary, no structure existed to simplify this interaction, so when we say the healthcare sector is fragmented, it's tiny things like this that make it so.
Yesterday was also my first time being a hackathon judge. I didn't even know I would be part of the judges. But it was good to see the ideas presented and even a likkle bit better to be able to identify avoidable mistakes because that's a sign of growth.
Funnily, it's questions we ask at Famasi Africa when building products, like Remi , that also popped up during the presentations. Who's the customer?, why should they use the product?, what's the cost of acquisition?, what's the customer journey?, how will you distribute?, etc.
Getting pharmacists, especially young ones to be involved in these discussions is really good because the healthcare space in general needs plenty exposure to a world of possibilities. We can only start to see real change in the pharmacy space when both the young and old advocate against the resistance to change, for example.
At Famasi Africa, we're seeing customers being grateful for our existence and while that a lot of pressure to be on our toes because we're solving a problem, it also made us re-think the approach to care. Yes, a customer doesn't need a Facebook ad to tell them to buy pain killer for their headache, but they need a service that makes it easier to get said pain killer. We're very close to crafting the best customer experience at Famasi Africa and I can't wait to share what we've been working on in November.
If you're a pharmacist, you should know that the best pharmacies are growing with Dispensary . Don't be resistant to abandoning that software that was built in the early 20s or the other one that's meant for supermarkets. And you surely shouldn't continue using pen and paper.
Be an advocate of digital tools, signup to use Remi, and keep an eye out for our pharmacy-focused courses. The keynote speaker said innovate or die. Well, let there be Famasi and I'll see you on the next stage.