Silver Linings and Limitless Sky
Silver linings and limitless sky: my first 100 days “in office” at Audere
As I board my 6am flight, on my way from Johannesburg to Cape Town for a meeting with an African COVID test manufacturer, I look around the packed plane and see mask-covered faces mulling about, looking for their seats, and anxiously searching for any scarce remaining overhead locker space. Nearly two years into this life-changing pandemic and the ubiquitously covered human faces in this plane now feel “normal”. It is painfully obvious that our lives are indefinitely altered. Always looking for the silver lining, throughout all of the disruptions and setbacks of COVID, one area that provides hope is the acceleration of innovation in healthcare – innovation in testing, in vaccinations, and in how we provide healthcare services in our new reality.
I am just over three months into a new role as CEO of Audere, a Seattle-based software development company. Audere was envisaged by its founders as a refreshing experiment aimed at combining the best of Seattle software development expertise in a socially responsible way, directing them to identify, solve, and implement health tech solutions to tackle the most urgent and under-resourced challenges in the developing world.
Thirty enthusiastic technology superstars, having left or turned down the allure of exponentially accelerating big tech salaries and stock options, instead now focus their unique skills and expertise on a cause that is worth more than dollars … a cause they can proudly share with their families — improving the healthcare and lives of those who need it most.
While the patient healthcare journey — seeking care, understanding a diagnosis, and following treatment plans — sounds simple, we all know that it can be anything but that. COVID has only further complicated the healthcare landscape, especially for those in resource-constrained settings.
When presented with obstacles and challenges, however, humanity's intellect and survival instinct combine to accelerate innovation, moving us forward, faster. This has been the story of the last two years. From symptom assessment to wellness, the patient journey has been improved and enhanced by new solutions that have flooded the market during the pandemic. Many of these innovations leverage the pocket-based, technology communication device we now carry constantly: the smartphone.
Enter Audere ... with our talented team and generous financial support from like-minded donors, we set out to address an important aspect of the healthcare journey. Through the use of smartphone-based technology, our focus is on empowerment and decision-support, providing users the tools needed to understand, utilize, and interpret rapid tests, while linking results to treatment. We empower three main groups with our solutions: patients to self-triage and determine next-steps for care; healthcare workers to make confident, informed decisions about treatment or referral; and public health officials to access accurate surveillance data for improved public health decision-making.
Perhaps the most exciting user we serve and have focused on during COVID is the patient themselves. As I write this, the US is rolling out hundreds of millions of free home test solutions to facilitate fast and easy COVID 19 screening. Putting the power to self-screen and diagnose directly in people’s hands with the use of a robust system, interactions and tech supported diagnostic aids. This is the beginning of a new normal in healthcare where a range of conditions and symptoms will be screened for by a patient prior to accessing a health care worker. Technology has begun and will continue to ensure that resources, especially costly skilled human resources, are more accurately identified, matched, accessed and utilised in healthcare thus optimizing care and cost efficiencies and limiting health care worker burnout.
These first 100 days on the job as Audere’s CEO have exposed me to the passion and skills of the dedicated product development team at the heart of our cutting-edge technology. I have never been more inspired in a role or more convinced that we are on a new, steep healthcare trajectory, providing core components that help re-imagine how the world views and implements healthcare. People across the globe will benefit from our mission: to significantly impact the lives of people in resource-constrained environments, who most need progress and improved access to healthcare.
As my plane begins its descent to land, I see Cape Town in all her splendour coming into view. I see the glory of Table Mountain with her cloth-like cloud covering, embraced in the distance by the vast Atlantic Ocean. I begin to imagine how extraordinary it would be to take, and scale, a quality COVID self-test coupled with Audere’s technology across the African continent. I imagine how many more diseases and conditions we could support in the upcoming years. As we pierce the clouds it becomes clear … silver linings in the limitless sky!
