Dr. Maombi is a mobile application that connects nurses in rural villages of Tanzania to medical doctors in city hospitals. Given the low doctor-to-patient ratio and poor infrastructure in Tanzania, it is time-consuming and expensive for patients in rural areas to visit doctors in city hospitals. Instead, they resort to nurses in their local villages who are not trained to handle complicated medical conditions.
In order to widen access to affordable, quality healthcare in Tanzania, a team of doctors, engineers, economists, and designers in Sweden and Tanzania have come together to develop a mobile app that enables village nurses to upload patient symptoms, medical history, video, and images to a file that doctors can review from city hospitals. The doctors can suggest follow up treatments, thereby saving the patient an unnecessary trip to the hospital and simultaneously encouraging patients to be pro-active about seeking medical attention without the deterrent of cost and time.