Millions of South Africans still struggle to access consistent, quality primary healthcare. Language barriers, distance from facilities and a shortage of trained health workers are just a few of the factors impacting the standard of care. Tshikululu Social Investments and Dr Sophia AI are addressing this gap through a new partnership that brings AI-assisted care to underserved communities and advances health equity across South Africa.
Dr Sophia AI is an Australian-developed, clinically governed decision support platform that helps clinics deliver consistent, high-quality care at the point of consultation. Through this partnership, small and medium healthcare practices in South Africa will gain access to AI-assisted clinical support that strengthens the care they provide. As these practices grow, more communities gain reliable access to primary healthcare.
How AI-assisted care supports clinicians
The technology is intended to support, not replace, healthcare professionals. It guides structured assessments, helps identify potential risks and drug interactions, and supports clinical documentation, while clinicians remain responsible for reviewing and approving recommendations. The platform is built around explainability, traceability and clinician oversight, with an audit trail designed to support clinical governance and accountability.
Piloting AI-assisted care in the Western Cape
A pilot is already under way with nurses working in community-based primary healthcare settings in the Western Cape. This is this first phase in testing how Dr Sophia AI can strengthen healthcare systems, and small businesses, in under-resourced communities.
The pilot will focus on localising Dr Sophia AI for South African community healthcare settings. This includes embedding South Africa’s Essential Medicines Lists and relevant clinical guidelines, refining the platform for local care pathways and testing its language capabilities in the context of how patients and healthcare professionals communicate in practice. The pilot will also gauge how the platform can grow revenue streams in small businesses by streamlining operations.
Insights from the pilot will be used to continually refine the platform for the local context and inform its potential wider deployment.
A funding model that links commercial growth to social impact
Alongside the pilot, Tshikululu and Dr Sophia AI are designing a funding model that could complement traditional grant funding by linking commercial growth to social impact. The concept would see a percentage of future revenue generated through Dr Sophia AI’s commercial deployment directed towards a grant fund. This fund will be channelled towards initiatives that expand access to quality healthcare and support SMME growth, with Tshikululu bringing its experience in social investment and fund management to the model.
Clinical governance and regulatory compliance
Dr Sophia AI complies with American FDA Clinical Decision Support Software requirements and is registered in Australia as Software as a Medical Device, Class I, Clinical Decision Support Software; providing an internationally recognised regulatory foundation for its use as clinical decision-support technology. Its South African deployment will equally align with applicable POPIA, SAHPRA and HPCSA requirements.
Localising a global platform for South Africa
“Where you live, the language you speak or the availability of healthcare professionals in your community should not determine the quality of healthcare you can access,” says Leanne Emery-Hunter, CEO of Tshikululu Social Investments. “This pilot is about taking an established AI-assisted clinical platform and embedding it in the South African context: our clinical guidelines, our languages and the realities of frontline healthcare delivery.”
The partners are looking to engage funders, healthcare organisations, corporates and other potential partners interested in helping to shape and participate in the model. The ambition is to explore whether commercial adoption of the technology can create an ongoing source of funding that, in turn, supports grant-funded healthcare initiatives in underserved communities.
“Healthcare is deeply local, but the challenge of delivering consistent, high-quality care is global,” says Julia McCann, GM, Dr Sophia AI. “Our ambition is to build technology that can support healthcare professionals across very different health systems, languages and communities. South Africa is an important opportunity to demonstrate how a global platform can be meaningfully localised, combining international clinical capability with the guidelines, languages and realities of care on the ground.”
The partnership reflects a broader approach to social investment. It brings together technology, commercial and social-sector partners to develop new approaches to persistent social challenges and explore funding mechanisms that can complement traditional grant-making.
“This is the kind of social innovation we want to enable,” says Emery-Hunter. “It brings together technology, frontline expertise and a new approach to funding around a very practical question: how do we get better healthcare closer to people who have historically had the least access to it? We believe that will require collaboration, continuous learning and new ways of thinking about how social impact is funded.”
Tshikululu and Dr Sophia AI welcome conversations with organisations interested in partnering on the next phase of the initiative and helping to shape how the model could contribute to more equitable access to quality healthcare.
