A nonprofit developed by UNC seniors fills critical missing link to connect hospitals in Ghana with surplus U.S. medical supplies.
Not winning the Carolina Challenge in 2008 proved to be an invaluable experience for the UNC-Chapel Hill undergraduate entrepreneurs who created MedPLUS.
They won only an honorable mention, but came away with keen insights into how to improve their plan to create a nonprofit to connect recycled surplus medical supplies and equipment from the United States with health care centers in developing countries.
This year, MedPLUS came back stronger and more focused. They won first place in the 2009 Carolina Challenge social track — the John Stedman Social Entrepreneurship Award - and $15,000 in prize money they are using to launch their new venture this spring.
Team members, all graduating seniors from the College of Arts and Sciences, are Lauren Slive, a public policy major, Emma Lawrence, public policy and psychology major, and Emily Nix, mathematics and economics major. A team member from last year, senior economics major Phil Gennett, served as adviser.
It was Gennett who knew about the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative and encouraged the team to participate in the Carolina Challenge in 2008.
"It was a great experience," says Slive, "and it turned out to be a good thing that we did not make the finals in 2008. We received so much valuable feedback from the judges last year that we took the summer to put their ideas into practice and were able to develop a much better understanding of what we needed to do. We knew we wanted to come back to the Carolina Challenge again this year with a much stronger business plan and presentation."
That plan explained how MedPLUS would not only connect hospitals in developing countries with needed medical supplies but also empower the hospitals with a greater role in the process, resulting in more efficient and cost-effective methods of procurement.
The idea for MedPLUS grew from a trip Lawrence and Slive took to Ghana, West Africa, in 2007. That experience led them to start Project Heal, a nonprofit medical outreach organization serving residents of Ghana. Project Heal distributed first-aid kits to Ghanaians and organized community service projects and hospital work. Project Heal is now a special project of the Campus Y, UNC's largest student organization, which promotes social justice.
"From our experience with Project Heal, we began to think about ways to make distributing health-care supplies more efficient and effective," says Slive. Team members began working with MedWish International, a Cleveland-based nonprofit that provides humanitarian aid through the recovery and recycling of donated medical supplies that would otherwise be discarded.
"We learned a lot about the shipping-and-distribution process through MedWish," Slive says. "We wanted to do the same type of work but we wanted to give the hospitals more input into the process." That includes letting hospitals specify their needs, then matching donated items with those needs, reducing waste and improving the effectiveness of the donations.
With MedPLUS, hospitals in Ghana pay only the cost of shipping recovered supplies, saving thousands of dollars previously spent on purchasing supplies at full price. This reduces their reliance on foreign aid and creates a more reliable and sustainable health care system.
Even before launching the nonprofit officially, MedPLUS signed up four client hospitals in Ghana. Medical supplies are being provided by MedWish International and other surplus suppliers and recovery warehouse organizations throughout the United States.
The $15,000 Carolina Challenge prize money enabled the team to immediately launch the company, beginning with a pilot order of 20,000 pounds of supplies shipped to Ghana on April 7. A new Web site that organizations will use to order supplies is nearly ready.
Following graduation in May, all three team members will travel to Ghana to unveil the Web site to current partners and recruit new partner hospitals to join their network. They will also meet with Ghana's minister of health to find out how they can better serve the needs of Ghanaians and more effectively contribute to the country's health-care system. The team will hire a Ghanaian field worker to serve as a liaison between suppliers and partner hospitals.
"We are very passionate about making this happen," says Slive. "We eventually hope to be able to help any hospital in a developing country with a significant budget."
