In a hospital emergency ward, a three-hour delay trying to find prescribed remedy isn’t an inconvenience—it may be deadly. In 2020, whereas working in an Ethiopian public emergency room, nurse and social employee Beamlak Alemayehu watched sufferers lose important hours shifting from pharmacy to pharmacy simply to find important medicine and exams. Some by no means survived the wait. Determined to repair the fragmentation, she got down to construct Medanit in 2022 as a clear digital listing. But when she approached clinics and pharmacies, she hit a wall: between 80% and 90% of them nonetheless ran fully on guide paper ledgers. There had been merely no digital information to plug into. Realising she couldn’t simply be a consumer-facing intermediary, Alemayehu took on the heavy lifting: writing hospital administration software program, constructing digital medical information (EMR), organising pharmacy supply logistics, and launching a devoted name centre to make sure rural farmers and moms with out smartphones weren’t left behind. Today, Medanit has onboarded over 520 docs, logged 1.2 million platform guests, and secured backing from the Bayer Foundation because it prepares to develop into Rwanda and Zambia. In this characteristic, JOHN ADOYI tells the story of an Ethiopian nurse who stopped ready for healthcare infrastructure to reach—and built it herself.
In healthcare, each minute could make a distinction. Beamlak Alemayehu, a educated nurse and social employee, noticed this firsthand throughout seven months working within the emergency division of an Ethiopian authorities hospital in 2020. Patients might spend hours trying to find the remedy, diagnostic exams, or specialist care they wanted.
She watched sufferers transfer between hospitals and pharmacies, usually dropping three or 4 hours looking for prescribed remedy. Others waited days to seek out the proper specialist. Meanwhile, docs waited for remedy or take a look at outcomes they wanted to make selections about their sufferers. Some sufferers misplaced their lives amid these failures, in response to Alemayehu.
“Every minute has a value for the patient and for the physicians. Most of the cases that we treat are life or death issues,” she mentioned.
That expertise made her query why sufferers needed to navigate such a fragmented system simply to seek out the care they wanted. She noticed a necessity for a simple option to discover accessible docs, find remedy, and establish services providing the proper diagnostic companies.
That thought led Alemayehu to discovered Medanit in 2022, a digital healthcare platform that’s aiming to make healthcare simpler to entry in Ethiopia. What started as a medical listing has since expanded to incorporate physician appointments, telemedicine, remedy supply, and digital programs that assist healthcare services handle their operations.
Today, Alemayehu mentioned Medanit has onboarded 527 docs and recorded 1.2 million guests throughout its channels since January 2026. She has additionally earned recognition from the Bayer Foundation, which chosen her as a recipient of its grant for ladies entrepreneurs, offering mentorship and enterprise growth assist to assist Medanit scale its operations and develop entry to care.
Beyond discovering a physician
Geography stays one barrier to healthcare entry in Ethiopia. A 2023 examine revealed within the Journal of Global Health estimated that about 18% of the inhabitants lacked entry to a public well being facility inside a two-hour stroll, with substantial variations between areas. The examine used 2020 inhabitants estimates and facility-location information from December 2021.
For those that have entry to a facility, ready may be one other impediment. Ethiopia’s Public Health Institute discovered that 49% of respondents in its People’s Voice Survey waited greater than an hour to see a healthcare supplier throughout their most up-to-date go to. Among rural respondents, the determine was 55%.
But serving to sufferers discover healthcare companies introduced one other problem for Alemayehu: the services themselves didn’t at all times have the organised data her platform wanted.
When she started approaching hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies to determine partnerships, she anticipated to acquire their digital information and stock information and combine them into Medanit. But there was a blocker: roughly 80–90% of the services she approached nonetheless relied on guide processes, in response to Alemayehu.
“We were planning to launch it after we developed our platform,” she mentioned. “All we thought was we would get the data from our partners, and then we would launch our product.”
Her expertise displays a wider problem in healthcare digitalisation. A 2023 systematic evaluate and meta-analysis of 5 Ethiopian research involving 2,439 well being professionals estimated digital medical report utilisation at 51.85%.
The researchers recognized coaching, entry to consumer manuals, and administration assist as elements related to adoption.
For Alemayehu, the implications had been quick. A listing might assist sufferers establish a facility, however connecting them to accessible docs, medicines, and diagnostic companies required dependable data from the suppliers themselves.
“We cannot digitalise or create easier access to care just from a patient perspective or becoming a middleman,” she mentioned.
Medanit consequently expanded past its unique listing mannequin to develop hospital administration programs, digital medical information and pharmacy stock instruments.
The firm now works not solely to assist sufferers discover healthcare companies but in addition to assist services organise the data wanted to make these companies accessible.
Building greater than an app
Medanit’s companies prolong past serving to sufferers discover docs. Through its web site, cellular app, Telegram service, and a name centre, sufferers can e book appointments, find prescribed remedy, prepare diagnostic investigations, and seek the advice of docs remotely.
The totally different entry channels are designed to accommodate sufferers with various ranges of entry to know-how publicity.
Alemayehu mentioned sufferers can add a photograph of a prescription or enter the identify of a drugs to seek out the place it’s accessible, then prepare supply by the platform.
Those in search of diagnostic exams can discover services providing the required investigations and e book appointments, whereas sufferers who want medical recommendation can seek the advice of docs by way of video calls.
“You can book a doctor, you can take a picture of your prescription and upload it and see where you can find it, and we deliver that medication to you as well,” Alemayehu mentioned.
“The call centre is mainly intended to provide these services for those who do not have access to a smartphone or the internet,” she mentioned, pointing to rural moms and farmers among the many individuals the service is designed to succeed in.
On the supplier facet, Medanit works with associate docs who supply consultations in areas together with paediatrics, cardiology, dermatology, and gynaecology. Alemayehu mentioned the corporate additionally has its personal workforce of docs who assist coordinate appointments, consultations, and medicine deliveries. Through Medanit Counselling, sufferers can entry digital remedy from psychological well being professionals, she added.
Doctors have separate accounts the place they handle appointment schedules and join with sufferers. But the platform’s work extends past facilitating these interactions. Medanit has additionally developed hospital administration programs, digital medical information, and pharmacy stock instruments to assist healthcare services organise their operations.
Alemayehu mentioned this growth adopted her discovery that many services lacked the digital information and stock programs she had anticipated to hook up with the unique listing.
Medanit started working with suppliers to digitise their operations, recognising that connecting sufferers to care additionally relied on services having organised details about their companies and sources.
The enterprise of constructing healthcare accessible
Medanit’s enterprise mannequin spans each side of healthcare supply. The firm earns income from remedy supply charges, commissions on docs’ appointments, per-minute telemedicine consultations, and counselling classes. It additionally sells digital programs to healthcare services, together with digital medical information (EMR), stock administration and hospital administration software program.
But constructing a platform that addresses a number of gaps in healthcare has not essentially made it simpler to develop the enterprise. Alemayehu mentioned the sluggish adoption of digital well being companies and restricted income have constrained its capability to develop.
“Obviously, funding has been one of the constraints that we face because it’s a very sensitive sector that we are operating in. It grows within a very limited amount of revenue,” she mentioned.
The problem, in response to her, isn’t merely growing know-how that works. Medanit should additionally construct the operational infrastructure wanted to ship its companies, significantly remedy supply.
That means securing remedy shares, establishing a dependable provide chain, and growing the logistics wanted to succeed in sufferers who would possibly in any other case battle to entry medicines.
“Creating an optimised logistics pathway for the medication delivery path has been our bottleneck because of funding issues,” Alemayehu mentioned.
Regulation has added one other layer of uncertainty. When Medanit began, there was no clear digital well being coverage framework for private-sector platforms providing the vary of companies it offers, Alemayehu famous. The startup’s mixture of telemedicine, remedy supply, appointment reserving, and digital programs for healthcare services has additionally made it arduous to suit the enterprise right into a single licencing class.
She mentioned she has continued to have interaction with the Ethiopian authorities, demonstrating the platform’s uptake and the potential financial savings it might supply sufferers and the broader healthcare system. Alemayehu hopes a proposed startup proclamation will create a regulatory sandbox wherein corporations equivalent to Medanit can function whereas the suitable frameworks are developed.
These monetary and operational constraints knowledgeable Alemayehu’s utility to the Bayer Foundation Women Entrepreneurs Award. In 2026, she was chosen as considered one of 15 winners. Each winner receives €25,000 ($28,000) in non-dilutive funding and takes half in a six-month accelerator programme providing personalised mentorship, enterprise growth assist, and entry to trade networks.
“We were looking for a way that will help us to scale. We wanted to optimise what we already have and become more innovative,” she mentioned.
The funding is predicted to assist Medanit optimise its current programs and strengthen its remedy supply and telemedicine companies. Alemayehu hopes the assist will assist the corporate deal with operational constraints which have restricted its development, giving it a stronger basis to succeed in extra sufferers.
Looking forward
Over the subsequent yr, Medanit is concentrating on between 3 million and 4 million individuals in Ethiopia who lack healthcare entry, specializing in rural communities. Beyond that, Alemayehu desires Medanit to succeed in 100 million individuals in Ethiopia and develop into not less than 20 African nations over the subsequent 5–10 years.
The firm is already exploring alternatives in Rwanda and Zambia, with plans to enter these markets by 2027, the founder mentioned.
For Alemayehu, the ambition stems from the sufferers she encountered as a nurse and the difficulties they confronted discovering well timed care. She hopes Medanit will make healthcare simpler to entry for individuals who would possibly in any other case spend hours trying to find remedy, diagnostic companies, or the proper physician.
“What we are building is not a luxury product,” she mentioned. “We are out here saving lives, and the fewer hours people have to spend searching for healthcare, the more I know we are achieving our goal.”
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