PATIENT IDENTIFICATION CHALLENGE; INDIA
PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED
Free, SMS service that provides accessible diagnosis for for easily correctable health conditions and connects users to vetted health facilities.
Learn more about the Patient Identification Challenge and why identifying individuals in need of medical treatment and finding ways to make that treatment accessible reduces poverty.
DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION
In Mumbai, a dynamic metropolis and the entertainment and financial capital of India, 41.3% of the population of 19 million reside in slums. The largest of these slums is Dharavi, a locality in the heart of Mumbai, with a staggering 2000 people residing per acre. Many of the public hospitals in the area are overcrowded and unreliable in their services , leading residents of the slums to face a lack of access to affordable, quality healthcare, despite their proximity to world-renowned health infrastructure - echoing a theme seen in many urban slums across India. This leads to residents contracting diseases that are left undiagnosed and untreated in spite the fact that some of these conditions are easily-correctable, easily-identifiable and cheap to treat.
88% of Indian households now have mobile phones, including 77% of households in the bottom quintile. Due to the widespread presence of mobile phones, India is predicted to have the highest adoption rate for mobile health or “mHealth” technologies
Sehak has created creating a free, call-based service that provides an accessible
diagnosis for the 4 easily correctable health conditions targeted, connects users to vetted health facilities that can treat the diagnosed condition, and regularly engages with the users.
The service will target 4 pecific easily-correctable, identifiable and cheap-to-treat health conditions: obstetric fistula, cataracts, clubfoot and cervical cancer.
Users will sign up for our service by placing an initial missed call to our number. They will then receive an immediate automatic call back, and the automated response system (IVR) will prompt the first-time caller to provide their basic demographic information, including their gender, age, location, and preferred language, as well as whether they are married and/or have young children. We will then store this information in our subscriber database and the subscriber will start receiving our regular text messages via SMS to dispense essential and timely health information.
PILOT AND SCALING GOALS
Reach 5,000 users during the pilot
Reach 50,000 users by the end of year 1
Send 1,500 diagnostic calls during the pilot
Send 15,000 diagnostic calls by the end of year 1
FOUNDING TEAM
Sanya Sareen - Partnerships and Finance Lead
Nishchala Bhandari - Strategy and Human Capital Lead
Arushi Gupta - Technology and Research Lead