26 Aug Mezzanine ranks twice on Fortune’s Change the World list
Justine Cullinan | 26 August 2019
Digital solutions creator Mezzanine, a member of the Vodacom group, celebrates two top 25 positions in Fortune’s prestigious list of companies that change the world.
Two of Mezzanine’s digital technology solutions have been recognised by Fortune magazine for making a positive impact on peoples’ lives. These are LEAP, in partnership with Accenture, and the Stock Visibility Solution (SVS), in partnership with Vodacom.
Stock Visibility Solution
SVS was designed by Mezzanine as a solution to alleviate medical stock-outs in South Africa. The system enables health practitioners at various levels in the supply chain to report on stock levels of medical supplies and medicines, some of which are absolutely critical for the health of hundreds of thousands of South Africans. The solution acts as an early warning system to ensure that shelves remain stocked in public health facilities across the country.
SVS provides health workers with a real-time, dynamic view of medical supplies across health facilities, and triggers automated reports via SMS and email actions to various levels of provincial management. This then enables pharmacies supplying these medical products to improve their distribution accuracy and efficiency.
After a successful pilot in 2014 and 2015, South Africa’s National Department of Health assumed operational management and financing of SVS and rolled it out in eight of the nine provinces across the country. Since then Mezzanine has launched SVS with public health facilities and humanitarian relief service points in Zambia and Kenya. Mezzanine is also pursuing partnerships to utilise SVS in other social sectors such as education.
LEAP
LEAP is a health-related mobile platform that enables health departments to train community healthcare volunteers as a way of counterbalancing the great unbalance between the number of skilled healthcare professionals available to patients and communities in remote areas.
What makes LEAP so successful is its adaptable design that does not limit its functionality to a smart device and that utilises SMS and audio content so that volunteers can engage meaningfully with training content. Volunteers have access to a variety of content ranging from diagnosis trees to chat forums that share best practice and advice between the volunteers using LEAP.
LEAP also enables health departments to monitor and support their volunteer workforce and generates report data needed to ensure improved efficiency and positive health outcomes for communities who are reliant on these volunteers.
Over 35 000 community healthcare workers have been trained on the LEAP platform in Kenya and have in turn affected the lives of more than 3.5 million households.
Both LEAP and SVS are web portals with mobile applications built on Mezzanine’s proprietary Helium server and hosting environment. Helium guarantees high levels of data security and integration with any mobile network operator and chosen method of communication. It is a locally operated system in South Africa that provides round-the-clock tech support with highly skilled engineers that ensure constant up time. Helium meets the highest international security protocols ensuring that sensitive information is protected and remains the property of the customer.
These accolades mean that Mezzanine has contributed to finding a sustainable way to address two key societal challenges in healthcare in Africa.
Find Fortune’s Change the World list for 2019 here.