Cisco, Deaf Aid and Safaricom formally piloted Cisco's care-at-a distance technology to bring patients and physicians based in Def Aid's Mobile Hearing Clinic, situated in Nairobi's Kawangware slum, together with Dr Gathare a specialist at Menelik Hospital in Nairobi for consultations. This first implementation of Cisco's HealthPresence solution in Kenya demonstrated how technology can transform the delivery of healthcare to underserved, remote, and rural areas. Bandwidth connectivity was provided by Safaricom, the leading provider of converged communication solutions in Kenya.
Deaf Aid's Mobile Hearing Clinic, is designed as an outreach tool for early identification of deaf and hard of hearing children, prevention of avoidable hearing loss through medical intervention. They deliver Ontological services to the communities where they are, so that children with any form or other of hearing loss or any other ear disorder; are identified and referred for appropriate intervention and rehabilitation.
The clinical consultations using Cisco's HealthPresence solution formed part of a day long Deaf Aid medical camp held on Saturday 24th September 2011. Doctor Gathare from Menelik Hospital was connected to the Mobile Hearing Clinic for remote consultations via Cisco HealthPresence over the lunch-time period.

The Cisco HealthPresence solution combines high-definition video, advanced audio, and network-transmitted medical data to create an environment similar to what people experience when they visit their local doctor or health specialist. It can be configured to support multiple locations and to use network connectivity to match the appropriate expert with the health needs of the patient. Designed for use by a licensed healthcare professional, it can extend the reach of healthcare providers, increasing access to specialists and can be used to redirect unnecessary hospital visits to low cost clinics.

Cisco HealthPresence allows patients to interact through technology with doctors who may be hundreds of kilometers away, within a clinical setting. It creates a dynamic environment for patient care, delivers a true-to-life experience between the patient and the provider, and helps improve lives by making it easier to access care.

The Early Identification Program in Kenya was designed as a result of a research conducted by Deaf Aid seeking to identify the causes of poor performance among the deaf children.

Jean Claude Adzalla, Country Director Deaf Aid said  "Healthcare initiatives are a key priority for Kenya's National Agenda, and at Deaf Aid our aim is to help to improve the quality of life for Kenyan's and guarantees social welfare. Kenya, a country of 40 million inhabitants only has 42 Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) specialist doctors. This makes a ratio of 1 ENT specialist per 1 million inhabitants rendering the cost of ENT treatment highly prohibitive. As a result, poor communities have very limited access to ENT care and hence count among the highest affected by hearing disorders and deafness. Our collaboration with Cisco and Safaricom demonstrated how patients and physician based in our Mobile Hearing Clinic in Kawangware slum could be connected with a specialist at Menelik Hospital in Nairobi without the need to travel, and a single specialist can now treat many more patients. Our learning's from this initial project will help us to determine how we leverage technology long-term to extend care to underserved, remote, and rural areas throughout Kenya."

Bob Collymore, CEO Safaricom, said "Technology will be a key enabler for economic reform in Kenya and our aim is to use it to both enhance operational efficiency of the Kenyan public healthcare system and improve the quality of the healthcare services provided to Kenya citizens. We are very pleased to be working with Cisco to enable our healthcare professionals to collaborate more easily, regardless of location and to improve both the timeliness and the quality of care delivered."

Den Sullivan, Head of Architectures and Enterprise, Emerging Theater, Cisco, Africa, Middle East and Europe says "Cisco is focused on partnering with governments and organizations to transform the delivery of healthcare through 21st-century technology. Today, Cisco Care-at-a-Distance Solutions are transforming healthcare by providing a new access model that enable patients form under-privileged and rural communities to easily connect with the best clinician for their specific condition, regardless of patient or clinician's location. To that end, Cisco Care- at- a-Distance Solutions are directly impacting lives by making quality healthcare accessible to remote, rural populations and underserved individuals and communities"