India’s Most Remote Villages Are Getting Better Healthcare With This Cloud-Based Solution

Monday, November 21, 2016

In India, public health care is free, yet years of under-investment in public health means that facilities are also grossly understaffed and under-equipped. The country also has a massive resource gap of over 4 million health workers and, to compound problems, nearly 60% of existing health workers practice in urban areas.

With 70% of its people living in villages, often far from health care providers, it’s clear that there’s a lot of room for affordable health services to grow in India.

Aiming to bridge the poor health infrastructure gap in rural areas and tap into the $125 billion health care market, Sameer Sawarkar and Rajeev Kumar, founders of health technology company Neurosynaptic Communications, have built a cloud-based, point of care diagnostic equipment and telemedicine solution that enables remote health care delivery. 
Called ReMeDi (Remote Medical Diagnostics), it’s a comprehensive low-cost digital health solution, which empowers its over 8,000 health technicians — with little or no college education — to act as a proxy for doctors in rural areas. The technicians operate it in 2,200 villages across India, with a total population of 50 million people.

“ReMeDi links up health workers, health clinics, pharmacies, diagnostic labs, doctors, and central medical facilities. It has been built taking into consideration the skill-set and infrastructure issues, and hence can be operated even at low bandwidth by semi-skilled operators, with a little training,” says Sawarkar, adding that ReMeDi solution, launched in 2008, is also used by hospitals, clinics and non-governmental organizations.

Source: Forbes (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Health Care, Technology
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healthcare technology, public health