NeoEHR Now Works on MTN — No Data Subscription Required

Hospitals in Nigeria can now run NeoEHR on MTN’s network without purchasing internet data bundles.

When we speak with hospital owners and executives across Nigeria, one request comes up repeatedly:

“We need an EHR that doesn’t depend on internet data.”

It’s not a theoretical concern. It’s operational reality.

So we’re pleased to announce that NeoEHR, Plural’s Electronic Health Records platform, can now be accessed on the MTN network in Nigeria without requiring a separate data subscription.

Whether staff are using the web platform or the iOS and Android mobile apps, hospitals on MTN can now carry out clinical and ancillary activities without purchasing internet data bundles.

This matters more than it sounds.

Why hospitals ask for this

The reasons usually fall into three buckets:

1. Cost and control.
Maintaining monthly data subscriptions across a large hospital can be expensive. Add to that the operational friction of staff exceeding limits — sometimes because of non-work-related usage (read “staff watching Netflix & YouTube videos”) — and costs become unpredictable.

2. Reliability.
Hospitals cannot afford downtime. Poor signal strength or unstable connectivity can stall clinics, delay admissions and frustrate patients and staff.

3. Security concerns.
Some executives equate internet access with vulnerability, and worry about hacking or external intrusion.

Because of these concerns, some private hospitals invest in local servers and internal networks of varying sophistication. Larger government facilities sometimes deploy fibre optic cabling across their campuses.

But these solutions are capital-intensive and often out of reach for the typical hospital. And even when implemented, they come with their own fragility.

Local infrastructure is frequently compromised by:

• Power instability

• Fibre cuts

• Hardware failure across switches, routers and cabling

• Environmental risks

We’ve seen servers shut down because the air conditioning in server rooms failed.
We’ve seen network equipment damaged during lightning strikes in poorly earthed buildings.

In those moments, the promise of “control” collapses — and clinical operations suffer.

The Hidden Risk in Fully Offline Systems

Hospitals concerned about cybersecurity often default to fully isolated (“air-gapped”) local servers — sometimes even rejecting VPN access.

While well-intentioned, this approach creates new vulnerabilities:

• No practical off-site backups

• Limited remote support

• Slower upgrades

• Delayed patching

• Reduced system resilience

It also significantly reduces patient value. Patients cannot:

• Book appointments online

• Attend secure virtual consultations

• Receive digital prescriptions

• Access investigation results

• Receive automated reminders

In trying to reduce risk, hospitals often reduce capability.

And they close themselves off from modern, cloud-native innovation. Most contemporary software — including AI-enabled workflows — is built for distributed, scalable infrastructure. I know of no hospital in Nigeria that has the capacity to run advanced workloads onsite.

A different approach

That is why, working with our partners at Simplifyd, we chose a different route.

Rather than requiring hospitals to build and maintain their own network architecture, NeoEHR now leverages MTN’s national infrastructure — the largest and most widely distributed in Nigeria.

By plugging into existing telco-scale systems:

• Hospitals avoid recurring data subscription complexity

• Staff remain focused on patient care, not connectivity issues

• There is no need to maintain fragile internal networking equipment

• Security and upgrades are centrally managed and continuously improved

• The system remains future-ready for evolving technologies

Hospitals should not have to become telecom engineers to run digital health systems. Digital infrastructure should feel invisible — dependable, scalable, and aligned with clinical work.

In healthcare, uptime is not a convenience. It is a clinical requirement.

Our job is to remove friction between clinicians and care — and build infrastructure that works as hard as they do.

Because when connectivity stops being a problem, hospitals can focus on what actually matters: patients.