Dr. Simpa Dania is digitising healthcare across Africa to save more lives

In this special episode of My Life in Tech, we speak with Dr. Simpa Dania whose startup, Healthstack, helps healthcare providers across Africa digitise healthcare operations in order to improve operations and save more lives.

What are the challenges of running a healthtech in Nigeria?

Patience! Health is generally a slow adopter of new ways, so you require a lot of patience to thrive. You can look over the fence and see what is happening with fintech, and wonder what the problem is with health. Why am I not raking in as much money, etc? Healthcare and healthtech, in particular, require patience in everything—product development, raising money, building a team, etc. 

What are some things you know now about running a healthtech that you wish you knew before you started Healthstack Solutions?

Build for the market not what you think the market needs. Understand the problem of each stakeholder and solve for the problem, not the feature you are dreaming about. Just be customer-focused.

Founders talk about how hard it is to get talent. Has this been a challenge for you?

No, it has not been hard. 

What should we expect from Healthstack Solutions in the next five years?

The most widely used digital healthcare platform on the continent. Your provider and payer will be managing your health using Healthstack and perhaps the healthcare regulator as well,  and wherever you are, the state ministry of health would be monitoring population-level healthcare indices in real-time with Healthstack. You just might be paying for your healthcare needs and services via Healthstack. Healthstack will be helping countries fight emerging epidemics and pandemics and limiting the impact they may have on the population.

Simply put, Healthstack will be saving lives!

How far do you think e-health and telemedicine can go to solve Nigeria’s health problems?

It will go a long way to solve Nigeria’s healthcare challenges if designed, developed, deployed, distributed and delivered the right way with the customer at the centre. But more than the tools, I hold that data from digital health technology will be the saviour of our healthcare. The next generation of medical breakthroughs will be built through artificial intelligence using data. In essence that is what Healthstack is seeking to catalyse.

We recently spotlighted Simpa Dania in our exciting new video series, My Startup in 60 Seconds. You can watch his episode here and other videos in the series here.

My Life in Tech (MLIT) is a biweekly column that profiles innovators, leaders, and shapers in the African tech ecosystem, with the intention of putting a human face to the startups and innovations they build. A new episode drops every other Wednesday at 3 PM (WAT). If you think your story will interest MLIT readers, please fill out this form.