Babylon App: Healthcare Access in Developing Countries


SEATTLE — Acquiring access to healthcare in developing countries is often hard to do. In fact, there is often a lack of medical professionals available to assist people in a timely manner. In some places, people can’t afford healthcare or lack a way of getting medical help from a doctor. Thankfully, the rise of smartphones and smartphone apps pose a solution to these issues. One of these apps is the Babylon app, which hopes to give everyone, regardless of income or location, access to a doctor.

The App

Unfortunately, the Babylon app cannot physically send a medical professional to a person’s doorstep; but what it can do is provide that person with immediate access to doctors through their phone. The Babylon app allows people to text and video call doctors whenever the need arises, and all doctors in the Babylon app have a minimum of 10 years of experience so they’re more than qualified to provide advice to those who decide to use the app. This feature of the app is especially helpful for people, in developing countries, who do not have access to healthcare.

Although the app does not mean doctors will be able to physically examine users, the doctors can still they can give them advice about what they need to do. Doctors on the app can provide advice on pregnancy, treating certain types injuries and many other ailments. By providing self-care advice, the doctors on the app can provide users with more time to visit an available physician when treatment is desperately needed.

There are plenty of smartphones to be found, even though there may be some other issues in healthcare access in developing countries. For example, there was a smartphone surge in African countries and now there are a decent number of people with smartphone access. Within these numbers, young people ages 18-34 are more likely to have a smartphone than any other age group.

The number of smartphones in these countries are increasing, and as a result more people will have access to apps of all kinds. Thankfully, the Babylon app is available on the app store for Apple users and on Google Play for those with Androids.

Ease of Access to Medical Care

With access to the Babylon app, people will have easier access to healthcare than ever before. Not only that, they can add their families to the app so doctors can have files on all family members. The Babylon app can also monitor users’ overall health, so if there is a problem, doctors can immediately inform the user.

Not only does the Babylon app give people access to doctors, but there is also artificial intelligence (AI) available to help as well.

Let’s say that the doctor of a user is not available, but the patient needs answers right away. The user can then  text the app, and the AI will text questions back to help diagnose the potential problem. This feature of Babylon thus allows users to have 24/7 access to healthcare.

Smartphones are on the rise, and so, too, is healthcare access in developing countries. The Babylon app provides people with affordable access to doctors and healthcare that people may have never had before. The revolutionizing technology and features of Babylon can end up saving thousands of lives.

Daniel Borjas
Photo: Flickr


About Author

Daniel Borjas

Daniel lives in Tallahassee Florida. His academic interests include English and Japanese and his dream job would be to work for Nintendo! Daniel has been lucky enough to travel with his family to almost every island in the Caribbean.

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