Little, a Kenyan ride-hailing company, has partnered with over 200 medical specialists to offer patient booking services on the Little App. The new feature seeks to ease the queues experienced at doctor’s clinics when patients go for their appointments.
The Little Book-A-Doctor will offer customers an array of specialists to choose from and the option of pre-booking their rides to their appointments. The feature, which is currently in the pilot phase, hopes to see 500 more specialists on the system by the end of 2021. Little is also making plans to include home-based COVID-19 care services and at-home lab tests.
Speaking at the launch, Little CEO Kamal Budhabhatti, reiterated the importance of the product during this COVID-19 period. “Based on our consumer research, average waiting time at a Doctor’s clinic can be up to 40 minutes. We intend to reduce this waiting time through the streamlined booking system we have developed. All appointments, whether booked on Little App or direct walk-ins, will be saved in the clinic’s booking system that we have provided for the clinics. Additionally, patients are able to receive alerts when a booking is expected to delay, for better planning on the patient’s side, while avoiding crowding and long waiting time at the clinics. We have worked hand in hand with key players in the medical field to develop this feature and we will continue to modify it, based on feedback from our customers and partner doctors.”
With the Book-A-Doctor feature, clinics are also able to schedule Little rides for their customers, to and from the clinic. This will ease patient movement in and out of health facilities.
Other features incorporated by Little during COVID-19 include on-demand delivery services and merchant payment solutions.