We are excited to announce our newest investment in Bypa-ss, an Egyptian health-tech startup that has developed a platform to facilitate Health Information Exchange (HIE). Plug and Play Ventures is participating in the fundraising alongside Acuity Ventures, Zedcrest Capital, and Musha Ventures, as well as notable angels.

Understanding the Health Information Exchange Situation

The exchange of health information in Egypt faces three major challenges:

Paper medical records and legacy Electronic Health Records

The production and storage of paper medical records is expensive and these documents are easily damaged or lost. Due to the scattered data points, the efficiency of accessing and sharing health information is very low.

Traditional Electronic Health Records (EHR) solutions are not much better, particularly in emerging market settings. While they can reduce management and medical errors, prevent redundant testing, and provide evidence for medical procedures, they are very expensive, have poor user experience, and many times, cannot be fully adopted. For these reasons, less than 7% of the registered private clinics in Egypt use digital clinic management solutions. More importantly, traditional EHR cannot provide minimal interoperability and health information exchange. Neither paper records nor traditional EHRs provide a unified patient identity that works across different clinics or a unified infrastructure for the exchange of health information across fields.

Out-of-pocket expenses

Medical care accounts for a large part of personal and state-level expenditures. Egypt has 100 million citizens and healthcare expenditures are estimated to exceed $17 billion, of which more than 70% are out-of-pocket expenses, dispersing the purchasing power of patients, and thereby reducing affordability and service quality.

The focus of healthcare solutions

Given the outbreak of COVID-19, healthcare is one of the industries most impacted and the need for digital solutions has increased. There’s been a substantial increase of applications in areas like telemedicine, medication delivery, and more. However, interoperability and health information exchange were and are not a focus for apps or care providers as a value-add to their patients.

The HealthTag

In 2020, Bypa-ss launched HealthTag, a healthcare information exchange platform. It is both meant to help physicians and patients. On one side, it offers physicians a free, cloud-based clinic management solution to replace pen and paper or upgrade old and outdated legacy software. On the other side, patients get a mobile app and a physical card called a "HealthTag", for storing and sharing medical records across different providers as well as for purchasing healthcare services at discounted prices.

A digital Unified Patient Identity (UPI) gives stakeholders the ability to access, aggregate, and analyze their health records in real-time for data-driven quality healthcare. This provides patients with a convenient and transparent experience.

As a medical student in the emergency department, Andrew Saad was tasked with caring for a patient who did not know her medications. To avoid serious complications, Andrew had to order additional tests for the patients, delaying care and incurring costs. This moment stood out to Andrew and motivated him to develop a digital solution that would allow patients to have their medical information readily available in a convenient and transportable manner.

In addition to Saad as the CEO, the Bypa-ss team includes tech, insurance, and business development professionals, to further advance the product and grow the network of HealthTag users and providers.

Conclusion

The investment in Bypa-ss is not only an investment in a health information exchange platform, it is an investment in the future of the health infrastructure in Egypt. The company was born out of a real problem and is tackling it with a unique approach that connects all parts of the healthcare system. Plug and Play is extremely excited to support Andrew Saad and his team in this venture and we look forward to supporting them on the road to success.