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The Challenge
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How might we use social business to improve health in low-income communities?
Concept
A low-cost telemedicine solution that connects rural patients to urban doctors
ReMeDi (Remote Medical Diagnostics) is a solution kit that connects rural patients with urban doctors at a low cost. Trained operators at Internet kiosks transmit the patients’ readings to doctors who make diagnosis and issue prescriptions. ReMeDi measures four vital patients’ signs: temperature, blood pressure, heart beat and blood oxygenation.
Though all the measuring equipments look alike their traditional counterparts, the main components of the remote diagnostic equipment are electrodes and probes for ECG, temperature, blood pressure measurement, electronic stethoscope, a headphone for sound capture and the software. The sensors work with any standard Windows PC Laptop.
How does this work?
Imagine a village internet kiosk with a personal computer and a printer. The
remote diagnostic equipment is connected to the PC and the required software is
loaded. The kiosk PC is then connected to the doctor's PC through a video /
audio conferencing facility.
Once a patient comes to the kiosk, he/she can talk to the doctor via the video
/ audio conferencing facility. The doctor then activates the remote diagnostic
equipment at the kiosk from his PC and advises the kiosk operator to take the
patient's temperature (keeping the probe under the armpit).
Similarly, the doctor would advise the kiosk operator to place the stethoscope
at the relevant spots and the doctor could hear the heart beat by through a
headphone.
Finally the doctor makes his diagnosis and types out a prescription, which can
be seen on the PC at the kiosk and printed.
Who could run such a kiosk?
A group of enterpreneurs with some computer skills.
The team of doctors
As Colombia has 1,35 physicians per 1000 people and many of the impoverished people have no access to them, the idea is to connect with
- medical students from Colombia in the last year of theor studies
- doctors from a Spanish-speaking country, i.e. Cuba (5,91 physicians per 1000 people
Ecosystem
- back-end of doctors for consultation
- rural pharmacies
- connectivity providers
Costs to set up the ReMeDi solution:
- The set up of a telemedicine center in rural areas costs ~ 1500USD
for the basic type of solution
- Training costs for the internet kiosk operator- minimal as the telemedicine
solution is easy to operate
Scale:
I believe there is a strong potential. After 4 years ReMeDi serves some
50,000 villagers at four centers in southern India. (source: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1692387,00.html#ixzz1DkISik7t)
How do you envision this idea making money?
How does this idea create social impact, particularly around improving health?
- Ripple effect- if someone goes and is satisfied, he/she spreads the word (especially elderly males can spread the word and they are often regarded as an authority)
- The solution addresses three common problems in rural areas:
- no electricity and frequent outages – the solution runs on 2 watts of power, which is a very low power consumption device
- bandwith/connectivity available- the audio-video conferencing runs 32 kilobits per second
- lack of skilled personnel
17 Evaluations so far
Login to evaluate this concept and to see the results.
How well do you think this concept considers life in low-income communities?
| It is highly relevant to low-income communities | |
| It is somewhat relevant to low-income communities | |
| It does not significantly consider low-income communities |
How effectively does this concept use social business principles (that is, it has social benefits for the community but does not pay dividends?)
| This concept uses social business principles very well | |
| This concept could be easily modified to incorporate social business elements | |
| This concept does not connect with social business very well |
How easy would it be to implement this concept?
| Easy! This could be started immediately | |
| It would take some time and planning – but I bet I could see progress in the near future | |
| This concept would need extensive planning, partnerships & resources in place to get going |
To what extent will this concept improve people’s health?
| This concept would significantly improve people’s health and wellbeing | |
| This concept seems like it might improve health, although maybe indirectly | |
| This concept doesn’t really have much to do with health |
Overall, how do you feel about this concept?
| It rocked my world! | |
| I liked it but preferred others | |
| It didn’t get me overly excited |
Comments
05:25PM 1748 views 13 comments 11 applause Bookmark terms and conditions
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