01The card
I was in 100 level, studying Computer Science, when my sister woke me around five one morning. Our mother was not breathing. I rushed her to the hospital's Emergency Unit.
The first thing they asked me was: “Where is her card?”
The card was a piece of paper about a quarter of an A4 sheet, with the hospital's logo, her name and a number. Her records were kept on paper, in folders, in offices, arranged like books in a library. Without the card they could not fetch her file, and they would not attend to her until they had it.
I didn't know which card they meant. My sister had seen many cards in our mother's room. Home and back is about forty minutes. I spent more than thirty of them searching, found the card and brought it back. Then we were told her file wasn't kept at the Emergency Unit. It was stored in another unit of the hospital, and there were more delays.
By God's grace, she survived. But she nearly died because of missing health information, information that already existed, written down, somewhere in the same hospital. Accident victims are brought to that same door every day, unconscious, with no card at all.
02The idea
I kept thinking about it the way a first-year Computer Science student would.
What if Emergency could identify a patient and bring up their records instantly, even if they can't speak? Scan a thumb, and the record is on the screen.
03The result
In 2024, a consultant sent me for tests. At the laboratory everything was manual. My Widal test result was printed on a full A4 sheet, from one Microsoft Word template that they edited by hand for each patient. Nothing was saved anywhere. They just overwrote the same template for the next patient.
There was no QR code and no way to check whether a result was genuine. Anyone can edit a Word file, and fake test results are a real problem in Nigeria.
So I pitched the lab's founder an idea: results with a QR verification link, printed on 80mm thermal paper, sent by email, and every record saved properly.
He thanked me and said he couldn't wait for that solution.
04Labsynk
Labsynk is those two ideas, grown up. One record that follows the patient, found in seconds even when they can't speak. Results that anyone can check. Every access logged, and the patient in control.
I am building it for every family standing at an emergency desk at five in the morning, and for every scientist who deserves better than a Word template.
Muhammad
Founder, Labsynk