Simprints reports increased efficiency in healthcare delivery with biometrics

Simprints says it noted more efficiency in all its healthcare delivery projects around the world in 2023 thanks to its biometric digital ID technology.

In its 2023 Impact Review published recently, the biometrics non-profit says in all the countries where it is running major projects, its community health workers used less time enrolling patients, with over 80 percent of them attesting that the technology is easy to use.

The review also attributes the success recorded to factors including the quality of technical support and training that was available as well as community acceptance (there was 92 percent overall consent rate for biometric capture).

Across its eight major projects in four counties (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda), Simprints said it reached a total of 382,943 people with different services including vaccines, medicines and aid, explaining with figures the work done in each of these countries within the period under study.

Of this number, 379,667 people were reached using fingerprint biometrics, while 3,276 others got served after face biometric verification or authentication.

“In Ghana, a Community Health Worker (CHW) can identify a client 3x faster with biometrics; in Ethiopia, biometric search was 2.7x faster than digital ID search and 8x faster than manual name search,” says Simprints co-founder and CEO Toby Norman in the report’s executive summary.

“In Uganda, we saw an 80 percent decrease in enrollment time, allowing each Community Health Worker to serve, on average, seven more patients per day.”

Among other achievements in the course of last year, Norman mentioned the launch of the company’s first-ever open-source code which priorities data security and privacy, and the publishing of a handbook on responsible biometrics deployment.

Looking forward to the future, Simprints says it is working to create more impact, explore additional contactless biometrics modalities and ensure excellence in the “area of data security, privacy and informed consent.”

“As we build upon our evidence and learning, and make incremental improvements to our solution, we can better support our partners with more accurate and real-time data, allowing them to reach more people with quality health services, and contribute to critical global public health outcomes,” says Norman.

Also commenting on the report, Simprints Director of partnerships EJe Esangbedo said it captures the footprint of the company’s “seven impact studies, research and evaluations, in addition to collecting regular monitoring data for our eight different projects across the world.”

In a video posted to Simprints’ X account, Esangbedo said: “We’ve now completed the review of our evidence and summarized our achievements and learnings in this impact review. The report takes a deep dive into our global reach, the effectiveness and efficiency of our solution as well as amplifying the voices and opinions of frontline workers, and program participants who interact with Simprints’ work on a daily basis.”

Simprints says while it has improved on the way it monitors and evaluates the impact of its work around the world, their “ambition to go deeper and further remain.”

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital ID  |  healthcare  |  patient identification  |  SimPrints