Transcript Low Cost Computing for Rural Health Care: From the Lab to

Caring for the world; one handheld at a time
Low Cost Computing for Rural Health
Care: From the Lab to the Real World
Vish Anantraman, MD, MS
Who are we
Caring for the world; one handheld at a time
• Boston based global Healthcare Informatics company
• Spin-off from MIT-Media Lab
– Advised by Professor Sandy Pentland
• Founded in 2002 with seed capital from ConceptLabs
Inc, CA
• People
– Unique expertise in both healthcare and informatics
– Pioneers in creating & executing appropriate health
technology in rural India and South Africa
– Passion to innovatively apply advanced technology
to solve rural health problems
Vision
Caring for the world; one handheld at a time
Use cutting edge IT to solve the BIG
problems of our times:
» HIV/AIDS
» Diabetes
» Mental Illness
Estimated number of adults and children living with HIV/AIDS ,
From 2001 to 2001 Source: UNAIDS/WHO/UNICEF September 2002
Discover 
Develop 
Deploy
Genesis of a problem
Caring for the world; one handheld at a time
• Over 300,000 healthcare workers
• Go door to door delivering primary
healthcare
• Can we use technology to improve
healthcare delivery in some of the poorest
communities in the world ?
The Ca:sh project
Caring for the world; one handheld at a time
Ca:sh
– Disease case management
system for health workers in
rural India
• Linux handhelds
• Population over 80,000
• Over one and half years in
operation
• Antenatal care, Immunization,
Census records
Ca:sh
Engineering for low cost
Caring for the world; one handheld at a time
• Ca:sh – Palm OS version
• SD Card for HIPPA compliant
patient data storage
• Additional drug order entry
system
• Low-cost devices
• Robust database backend
Ca:sh
Partnering locally for HIV/AIDS
HIV Confidant ™
Caring for the world; one handheld at a time
Africa Center
Counseling centers
Counseling centers
Counseling centers
• 16 community based counseling centers
• 25,000 population resident adults to be tested in one year
• Cohort for HIV surveillance
Counseling centers
Sizing the problem
Caring for the world; one handheld at a time
HIV Confidant ™
• HIV blood test results need to be stored
confidentially
• Only patients to have access to results
• Obviate the necessity for re-testing
• Rapid, low-cost deployment
• Distributed nature of the counseling centers
Our solution
Caring for the world; one handheld at a time
HIV Confidant ™
Africa Center – test results in SQL server
Private Key
Public Key
HIV counselor
Patients
The Technology
Caring for the world; one handheld at a time
• Palm OS™ based
devices.
• Data stored in a RSA
public private key
encrypted format
• Database synchronization
to a SQL server
HIV Confidant ™
Other Applications for rural health
Caring for the world; one handheld at a time
• Medical guidelines engine for Palm OS™
– IMCI guidelines
• Field based survey toolkit
• GPS based patient tracking system for
Palm OS™
Other activities of Dimagi
Caring for the world; one handheld at a time
• DiabetNet™
– Wireless PDA based gaming for
increasing disease compliance
in Type I diabetics
• HiRoller
– Wireless cell phone based voice
analysis and measurement of
impulsivity in Bipolar Disorder
Acknowledgments
Caring for the world; one handheld at a time
• Media Lab Asia
• The Africa Center for Health and
Population Studies
• All India Institute of Medical Sciences