How MyItura pivoted from well being information to well being financing

Shina Arogundade spent 5 months dwelling with tooth ache as a result of his insurance coverage wouldn’t cowl the complete ₦120,000 ($82.62) for extraction. That have would finally reshape his whole firm.

In April 2022, Shina Arogundade’s household misplaced their physician of 17 years. By September, his father, who had battled continual hypertension efficiently underneath that physician’s care, was useless. 5 months. That’s all it took.

“His medicine have been modified, the best way he was handled was modified,” Arogundade remembers. “It was one criticism to the opposite. The expertise left a foul style in my mouth.”

The issue was clear – Nigerian hospitals operated in silos. No interoperability. No shared information. Docs deal with sufferers in isolation, generally ordering the identical assessments twice in a single week. Arogundade as soon as heard a few lady who practically died as a result of a physician modified her diabetes treatment dosage with out figuring out her historical past.

So in January 2023, Arogundade, who had beforehand co-founded a fintech firm referred to as Commerce Lenda, launched MyItura, a digital well being platform aimed toward making well being information interoperable throughout Nigeria’s fragmented healthcare system.

Three years later, MyItura is offering healthcare financing and preventive telemedicine companies to Nigerians.

The EMR dream meets Nigerian actuality

The imaginative and prescient was simple: construct an digital medical information (EMR) system that may permit hospitals, labs, and pharmacies to share affected person information seamlessly. Sufferers would personal their information. Docs would make higher choices. Healthcare would lastly enter the digital age.

“We examined the market, did buyer interviews,” Arogundade says. “That was not going to work.”

“Most hospitals didn’t have the mandatory finance to deploy the instruments they felt have been costly,” Arogundade explains. “The important thing downside was not that they needed to guard affected person data. It was pricey.”

There was additionally the cultural barrier. Older docs accustomed to ‘pen and paper’ weren’t keen to start out typing affected person notes. The youthful technology is likely to be prepared, however they weren’t those making procurement choices.

MyItura had constructed an answer to an issue hospitals acknowledged however wouldn’t pay to unravel.

The primary pivot: Constructing accessibility to get information

If hospitals wouldn’t undertake EMR straight, MyItura must get inventive. The group pivoted to constructing accessibility instruments: telemedicine platforms, AI-powered transcription for doctor-patient conversations, and a lab testing reserving system.

The logic was in the event you can facilitate healthcare entry, you possibly can seize information as a byproduct.

They launched telemedicine APIs that different startups might combine. They gave hospitals with out web sites a platform to conduct digital consultations. They constructed a market the place sufferers might guide lab assessments and have phlebotomists come to their properties.

“With accessibility, we might then get information,” Arogundade explains. “When a affected person and physician had a dialog, AI might transcribe it, summarise it, assist the physician create notes, and assist the affected person preserve a abstract.”

The technique labored—partially. MyItura began onboarding suppliers and sufferers. However the elementary downside remained: Price was nonetheless the bottleneck.

The lived expertise that modified all the pieces

Earlier this 12 months, CCHub issued a name for proposals for its Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) program. 

For Arogundade, the proposal landed on the good second, strategically and personally.

Years earlier, he had wanted a surgical tooth extraction. His insurance coverage lined ₦20,000 ($13.79). The process value ₦120,000 ($82.75). He couldn’t afford the hole.

“I didn’t take away that tooth till about 5 – 6 months later, making an attempt to assemble that cash,” he says. “I used to be dwelling with that ache. They gave me all kinds of issues to pour into that tooth. Each evening was a brand new set of ache.”

He had insurance coverage. He had a job. And he nonetheless couldn’t afford well timed care .

“As a result of I had lived that have, I understand how painful it’s to desert take care of one thing that would find yourself being catastrophic,” Arogundade says. “I felt that is one thing that must be solved for.”

The credit score man returns to credit score

The timing was virtually poetic. Earlier than MyItura, Arogundade had labored in banking as a credit score analyst, writing credit score insurance policies for banks. He’d co-founded Commerce Lenda, a fintech centered on credit score. His whole skilled background was in lending.

“After I received the MediLoan thought, it felt like, ‘That is it,’” he remembers. “I’ve been doing healthcare for the final two years, however I’ve appreciable data round credit score. That is an thought that matches completely.”

In December 2024, MyItura launched MediLoan, a ‘get handled, pay later’ healthcare financing product. Sufferers can entry as much as ₦200,000 ($137.32) in credit score to cowl medical bills, with the cost going on to healthcare suppliers, to not sufferers.

The product integrates through API, just like how Paystack works for funds. Suppliers can add a “checkout with MediLoan” button. Sufferers click on, get accredited inside 24 hours (or half-hour if the supplier has built-in the API), obtain remedy, and repay over time.

The pilot launched in November 2025. MyItura’s purpose is to achieve 750 customers earlier than a full rollout in February 2026.

Why everybody mentioned no, and why MyItura mentioned sure anyway

Healthcare financing isn’t new as an idea. 

“Banks won’t do it. Microfinance banks won’t do it,” Arogundade says bluntly. “There’s numerous danger. Nevertheless it will also be de-risked. I believe it’s a cause to seek out methods to de-risk it.”

The danger is actual. What if somebody borrows for remedy and dies? What if compensation charges are catastrophic? What if the market isn’t prepared?

However Arogundade argues the chance of inaction is worse.

“One in three individuals abandon care due to value,” he says. “Somebody with easy malaria that ₦10,000 ($6.89) or ₦20,000 ($13.77)  ought to deal with, they go to the hospital, that cash is just not obtainable. They abandon it. They return residence. They use agbo. It impacts their kidney. Catastrophic outcomes, as an alternative of a easy malaria drug that simply treats them.”

Healthcare financing addresses the meta-problem: Folks aren’t abandoning care as a result of they don’t need remedy. They’re abandoning care as a result of they’ll’t pay for it.

The complete-circle technique: Cash unlocks software program

Right here’s the elegant half, healthcare financing is likely to be the important thing that unlocks MyItura’s unique imaginative and prescient of EMR adoption.

If hospitals and labs have financing, they’ll afford to deploy digital instruments. If sufferers have financing, they’ll afford to hunt care. If either side have liquidity, the whole ecosystem can digitise.

“If suppliers have that financing, if they’ve the liquidity essential to deploy instruments, then the entire digital well being information factor turns into extra palatable,” Arogundade explains. “They’re extra prepared to take heed to you.”

MyItura is at the moment constructing out its APIs to make them obtainable to different healthtech corporations. They’re onboarding scholar ambassadors from medical faculties to coach hospitals on digital instruments and put together the following technology of docs to undertake EMR programs from day one.

The group has grown to 13 individuals – 60% ladies, unfold throughout tech, enterprise improvement, operations, and analysis. 

What’s subsequent: The ten-year imaginative and prescient

Arogundade’s imaginative and prescient for healthcare in Nigeria is straightforward: fewer hospital visits, extra home-based care, and 0 anxiousness about value.

“Issues that may be finished at residence might be finished at residence,” he says. “First triage with docs will occur at residence. Pathology assessments will largely occur at residence. The way in which Chowdeck delivers meals right this moment, healthcare may even be delivered at residence.”

And when individuals do want hospital care? “They may not be terrified of the price. It’s going to be, ‘I’m getting handled, and I’m certain MyItura might be there for me, and I will pay again later comfortably.’”

The trail from EMR platform to a healthcare financing firm wasn’t deliberate. It emerged from market rejection, private ache, and the realisation that software program alone can’t remedy systemic issues when the system can’t afford software program within the first place.

For MyItura, the lesson was painful however clear: Typically the infrastructure it is advisable construct isn’t the infrastructure you thought you have been constructing. Typically you must finance the infrastructure earlier than the infrastructure can exist.

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