E HealthPoint transforms rural health care by providing access to clean water and affordable treatment

Editor's note: This post was written by Andrea Boston, freelance writer for Ashoka Changemakers.

For many families in developing countries, traveling to a nearby city for a doctor’s visit is expensive and inconvenient, and a lack of safe drinking water can make existing health conditions even worse. E HealthPoint provides low cost, clean water and quality medical treatment to rural Indian communities with a unique technology-based management and delivery system.

E HealthPoint team members set up a full-service clinic and water sanitation station in the center of a low-income community, with additional water stations installed in more remote areas. Each clinic is stocked with videoconferencing, or “tele-medical” capability, basic pharmaceuticals, and quality testing equipment.

Participating households sign up to access E HealthPoint’s daily services by paying a nominal monthly subscription fee. This service helps fill the gaps in access to two of the most critical resources in preventative health care for rural residents: clean water and affordable treatment.

Each day, locals can visit the clinics to stock up on a supply of fresh water. While there, they can also access a variety of treatments, from 70 different diagnostic tests to 250 over-the-counter medicines. Patients can even consult with a doctor or a trained health provider using the clinic’s two-way video technology, making it possible to address urgent medical needs confidentially.

E HealthPoint was selected as a winner of the Innovations for Health: Solutions that Cross Borders competition sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio for its clever and wide-reaching method of care. This competition celebrated ideas that have the potential to treat citizens virtually anywhere in the world, and E HealthPoint delivered. It is an effective model that offers privacy, attention, accessibility, and even employment opportunities for people in underserved communities.

With eight clinics and 75 water sanitation stations throughout India’s Punjab state, E HealthPoint is a simple system that could spread quality rural health care across borders worldwide.

Read E HealthPoint’s competition entry to learn more about this groundbreaking approach to health, selected as one of three winning initiatives in the Innovations for Health: Solutions that Cross Borders competition.