Right now, we are just taking care of all the little last-minute details that every traveler must take care of. Things like: how much money do we take with? will our cards work there? what kind of medicines or remedies might we need? what kind of travel adapters do we need? how will my cell phone work? things of that nature. Then of course, there comes the question of what to pack… I mean, for a week in Florida I felt like I packed half of my closet… what’s going to happen to me when I am gone for almost a month??? (note to self: check airline baggage fees)

The class that has brought us to this point, G-Lab is now officially over but the work has just begun. We will be working very closely with important South African parties in order to roll out ClickDiagnostic’s mobile health technology and implementing their primary care services in the country. We really want ClickDiagnostics to walk away with a great experience, a lifelong relationship, and a successful outcome. To that end, I know I can count on my team to pull whatever all-nighters are necessary to get the job done… just supply us with lots of coffee! Hmm, I wonder what kind of coffee they have in South Africa?

Once on the ground in Johannesburg, I am going to be blogging frequently… I will also begin to add pictures. One thing that anyone who is around me for more than 5 minutes knows, is that I take a lot of pictures. At the time, I’m sure I am more than slightly annoying, but later on I have a lot of happy people who are glad I captured the memories… the good news is that we will also be traveling with several ClickDiagnostic’s team members including Ryan (see his blog too) who is talented in the photography and graphic arts fields. I think this trip will be a tremendous cultural education for us and cannot wait to get it started! January 1, 2010 hurry up please!

The Mvezo region is perhaps best known as Nelson Mandela’s birthplace and, while not everything has yet been finalized, we will be working with a couple of his grandchildren in order to develop a sustainable and affordable healthcare solution for the region. By addressing cervical cancer and TB, two very common opportunistic infections, we hope to rollout the Click mobile diagnostics technology and create a sort of case study that seeks to prove that this healthcare delivery model is not just good for now but is sustainable in the long term.

In class we have heard from several other great guest speakers and have studied several cases of interest. We are currently working on our Interim Research Report on South Africa and the existing healthcare system.  Researching another country’s healthcare system has been an extremely educational task and actually helps us understand our own much better. We have also found some very interesting facts as well. Despite the fact that private health sector in South Africa covers 16% of the population, it spends 1100% more than the government does on the public health sector. What this translates to, is the fact that for every dollar spent on a patient in the public sector, 72 dollars is spent on a patient in the private sector. When it comes to medical care in South Africa, there is no gray area; there are those that can afford to receive decent medical care and those who cannot. Unfortunately for many, the latter group is far greater than the former. Among all nations, South Africa has one of the widest disparities between its rich and poor.

In exciting news: we have all booked our tickets to Johannesburg now. We will be arriving January 2 and staying for approximately 3 weeks. During that time, we will split out time between Johannesburg and Mvezo in the Eastern Cape which is just a plane and car ride away. In the coming weeks, we will be finishing up our research report and our draft business plan for the clinics. We will write once more before we leave but we hope to update this blog on a daily basis while in South Africa! Until then, we will be trying to understand as much as we can about the country and its people and health system. Check back for our December update!

So far, the class has consisted of relevant cases on GHD in Africa and other applicable parts of the world. We have an incredible and accomplished set of faculty that are teaching this class as well. Our professor, Anjali Sastry, has degrees in Physics and Russian and a PhD. in System Dynamics from MIT. She has previously worked as a consultant at Bain, and, her research focuses on health systems in settings where the resources are constrained. Every week, we have at least one class with an expert guest speaker as well. In the past month alone, we have had Dr. Robert Riviello, Michael Seid, and Paul English speak to our class. Nowhere else that I know of, can one have access to such a set of world health experts who also teach us about important business concepts from their experience.

The next part of our class was to find a company. MIT works very hard at securing potential projects with companies in Africa so that we will have a great list to choose from. We then applied for projects and were lucky to get our first choice, ClickDiagnostics. ClickDiagnostics is a company that was born out of the MIT Media Lab a couple of years ago. ClickDiagnostics also won the Development Track of the MIT 100K Business Plan Competition on 2008. ClickDiagnostics aims to provide healthcare solutions via mobile technology that are both affordable and sustainable. Our project focuses specifically on the rollout of the technology at a couple of pilot clinics in South Africa. From there, using what we learn while on the ground in January, we will write a business plan for the further expansion of the clinics. We will also focus on the government and other potential sponsors to see whether there is a possibility of long-term sponsorship for ClickDiagnostics’ model.

For three individuals whose careers will likely not focus on healthcare, this class offers a great way for all of us to gain GHD experience in an international setting. We will spend three weeks on the ground in South Africa in January implementing and revising the work we will do while at MIT during the fall. We have no doubt that the experience we will gain through this class and project will be valuable not only in our careers ahead but during our time at Sloan too. Look for our blog in the coming months… we will be excitedly updating you as we progress. Stay tuned!