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Get the banners, balloons, and DJ ready, because it's time to celebrate!
Here at 3 Sided Cube, we LOVE working with incredible organisations across the globe to change millions of lives for the better. It’s the reason we get up in the morning.
But there is one thing that adds the delicious cherry on top…
And that’s having our projects be recognised!
We’re so proud that we’ve won Gold in the ‘Apps, Platforms & Software: Health, Wellness & Lifestyle’ category for our work with Virtual Doctors at the Lovie Awards.
If you’ve never heard of the Lovie Awards before, let us give you the low down.
The Lovie Awards first launched in 2010 and recognise European Internet excellence across culture, technology, and business. Being a finalist is considered a HUGE achievement, so imagine how excited we are to be Gold winners!
To celebrate the award-winning project, members of the team were also able to celebrate at the 14th Annual Lovie Winner Party in London!
The award-winning project
Now what you’re really here for, to learn more about our award-winning project with Virtual Doctors!
Virtual Doctors is a charity that was founded in 2007 and uses technology to support frontline healthcare workers in rural Zambia and Malawi.
So far, the charity has equipped healthcare workers in more than 270 health facilities with app-loaded smartphones. These facilities serve as many as 2.5 million people with no direct access to a qualified doctor.
The work that Virtual Doctors is doing is essential.
In Zambia there is only 1 doctor for every 12,000 people.
To put this into perspective, countries such as the UK have 1 doctor for every 360 people.
Can you imagine if we didn’t have easy access to medical advice?
For the majority of us, it’s likely all this information and advice is available at the click of a button.
Therefore, Virtual Doctors’ aim for this project was to help clinicians in some of the most remote and impoverished areas of sub-Saharan Africa obtain effective advice from volunteer doctors.
The solution? Harnessing technology to build a robust and scalable platform that works reliably offline.
Every day volunteer doctors, prominently based in the UK, offer advice to diagnose conditions, manage, and treat patients, to clinicians in Africa.
The Android app has features that enables clinicians in Zambia and Malawi to:
Collect detailed information so volunteers can provide accurate advice
Create and manage cases offline and sync data when online
Get assigned to appropriate specialists
Whereas the admin web portal allows volunteers to:
View and respond to cases,
Manage user access and roles,
Access a dashboard with relevant metrics.
This assists and empowers local health workers, helps support the reduction in mortality rates & hospital referrals, and furthers the Clinical Officers’ medical education.
Impact in numbers
Because of the nature of the project, there are two sides to the impact:
the volunteer doctors giving up their time to help,
The clinicians serving their communities.
The numbers and metrics paint the picture of the extent of the positive impact the project is having…
On the app for clinicians, we've seen engagement times over 10 minutes per session and an average of 7 sessions per user, with 275 active users.
On the web portal for volunteer doctors, we've seen engagement time just under 3 minutes per session and on average 2 sessions per user, with 279 users.
Overall, these metrics suggest that we’ve built a product that users find valuable which is a fantastic position to be in for growth!
This is also really emphasised by the fact that, across the two platforms, clinicians and volunteer doctors have closed 408 cases.
These case closures represent valuable, potentially life-changing support for the communities served by the clinicians and helped by volunteer doctors.
Annual Lovie Winner Party
The team shut their laptops and come together to celebrate in style at The Barbican Conservatory!
Ali, David, Charli, and Nikos, attended the event to raise a toast to the project and its impact, as well as meet a few fellow Lovie Winners.
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The Future
Our work doesn’t stop there!
After the successful deployment of V1, there are plans for further scaling and additional functionalities such as resource management and educational tools.
So stay tuned for more impact from the Virtual Doctors!
In the meantime, you can read more about the project in our case study here!
Published on 7 November 2024, last updated on 7 November 2024