Améliorer l'immunisation dans les pays en voie de développement
This entry has been selected as a finalist in the
Innovations for Health: Solutions that Cross Borders competition.
VaxTrac met en place des registres de vaccination biométriques mobiles dans les PVD afin de réduire les pertes de vaccins et empêcher de nombreux morts.
A propos de vous
A propos de vous
Prénom
Mark
Nom
Thomas
Adresse électronique
URL Twitter
A propos de votre organisation
Nom
VaxTrac
Site Web
Pays
États Unis, KY, Jefferson County
Pays dans lesquels ce projet crée un impact social
Benin, LI
Votre organisation est-elle une
organisation à but non lucratif
Depuis combien de temps votre organisation opère-t-elle ?
1‐5 années
Votre organisation a-t-elle reçu des récompenses ou des prix ? Si oui, indiquez-nous lesquels.
Références - Veuillez fournir deux références, accompagnées chacune d'une explication de deux lignes, d'une adresse e-mail et d'un numéro de téléphone
Heath Gross, heath.gross@sedulogroup.com, +15022667737. Heath is serial entrepreneur and currently runs a global competitive intelligence consulting firm that serves clients in the health and life sciences sector. He serves on the organization's Board of Directors. Munish Raizada, president@mifusa.org +12177209331. Dr. Raizada is a Board-certified Neonatologist with a large medical group in Chicago. He founded and serves as President of the Mission India Foundation (MIF), a non-profit that works in the Maternal and Child Health field in India providing immunizations; MIF was a partner organization for much of the early stage testing.
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Innovation
Sélectionnez la phase qui s'applique le mieux à votre solution
Création (un pilote qui vient juste de démarrer)
Depuis combien de temps le projet existe-t-il ?
En place depuis 1 à 5 ans
Le besoin : quel problème tentez-vous de résoudre ?
While the immunization rates in developing countries have progressed considerably in the past half-century, they have recently reached a plateau and are unlikely to improve much due to unaddressed obstacles in the vaccine delivery system. As a result, 2.5 million children die every year from vaccine-preventable diseases. The issue that is most directly responsible for stagnant performance is a lack of data. Healthworkers often do not know which vaccines a child has received and which they still need. Officials do not know where vaccines have been administered or where they should be redirected. All of this results in up to 50% of vaccines being wasted and millions of avoidable deaths.
La solution: quelle solution proposez-vous ? Soyez précis !
The basis of the VaxTrac solution is the ability to link a patient to a vaccination record. From this capability alone comes a slew of benefits. Since we work in the most remote and poverty-stricken geographies, identifying a patient and accessing their vaccine history is a major challenge. Paper vaccine cards—the standard mechanism—are inherently flawed; they get lost, damaged, populated with misinformation and burden the patient with the responsibility of retention. We have alleviated these issues through the use of biometrics, specifically the child’s fingerprints. VaxTrac has built a mobile, biometric-based vaccination registry that healthworkers bring into the field as they administer vaccines. The primary benefit is children receiving the appropriate vaccines. However, there are myriad ancillary benefits that come from having detailed data about where and when vaccines were administered, including supply chain management, demand forecasting and the elimination of overvaccination.
Le système : décrivez un exemple spécifique montrant de quelle façon votre initiative fonctionne ; indiquez vos principales activités.
Imagine a health worker in a rural clinic that is about to travel to a remote village for the day to administer vaccines, carrying little more than a cold box for the vaccines and a VaxTrac field immunization unit (FIT). The unit is comprised of a netbook, fingerprint scanner and GPS receiver packed into a case for durability and portability. Before leaving the clinic, the worker physically loads a number of vaccines into the cold box for transportation; in parallel, the worker will record in the FIT the number and type of vaccines going out. As the worker sees a child, he will ask the caretaker for the child’s gender and approximate date of birth before scanning both of the child’s thumbs. If the child has been seen before, the system will display which vaccines the child has received, which vaccines they are eligible for (based on time since last dose), and which vaccines should be administered that day (based on which vaccines the worker has on-hand). If a child is not in the system, a new entry is created and the worker is allowed to input past vaccination information, e.g. a vaccine card is present. As all of these FITs return to a clinic or hospital, the data is aggregated; the aggregation continues up the chain—district to sub-national, sub-national to national. With the amassed data, health policy makers can get real-time reports and see hyperlocal coverage maps. They can better project where and when vaccine demand will occur; they can re-allocate resources to regions more in need; they can respond to outbreaks deliberately and effectively.
Le marché : qui sont vos collègues et vos concurrents ? Identifiez les autres personnes qui travaillent à répondre au même besoin et indiquez ce qui vous différencie d'elles. Comment ces concurrents pourraient-ils influencer votre réussite ou votre croissance ?
VaxTrac lives firmly in the center of the burgeoning mHealth sector, where the power of mobile technology is leveraged to improve the quality of and access to health care for those in developing countries. There are other organizations—Medic Mobile, OpenMRS—working on aspects of the health records system, but no one is using biometrics as the patient identifier. Without a robust mechanism for identification, any new system will be inherently flawed as the root cause will go unaddressed. Also, no other organization is focusing on the vaccine delivery system as a whole, from manufacturer to rural health clinic, in the same manner as us. A concern going forward will be the interoperability of these various systems being deployed.
Impact social
Création de l'organisation : nous voulons tout savoir sur votre déclic. Expliquez-nous oú et quand les fondateurs se sont rendu compte que cette solution possédait un véritable potentiel pour changer le monde.
Our founder, and now Chairman of the Board, was engaged in a project on behalf of a major vaccine manufacturer to evaluate the case for production of a certain vaccine targeted at developing countries. A key component of that project was observing the vaccine delivery system from end to end. As he got closer to the “last mile” of the system (i.e. rural clinics, mobile vaccination teams) he saw that there were a large number of vaccines being wasted—up to 50% in some areas. There was an obvious disconnect in his thinking: "We spend billions of dollars every year to procure and distribute vaccines, and yet we're wasting a large number of these and children are dying as a result." In conversations with frontline health workers and government officials, the inability to link a patient and record became the key obstacle to further improvement. He suggested the use of the only identification mechanism that a child always carried with them--fingerprints--and a technology familiar in the West.
Décrivez le but de votre initiative, en insistant sur les résultats que vous souhaitez obtenir
We envision a world where every child, regardless of background, has equal access to lifesaving vaccines. Every year, more than 24 million children will not receive the most basic vaccines, and 2.5 million of which will die from vaccine-preventable disease. Ambitious as it may seem, we intend to drive that number to zero. It is encouraging that there is so much international focus and funding to bring vaccination to the forefront of development efforts. However, it is unacceptable that we do not make every available effort to ensure we do not waste a single dollar or a single dose. The goal of our initiative is to reduce vaccine wastage making more doses available and to strengthen the entire delivery system with actionable data.
Jusqu'à ce jour, quels résultats a obtenu votre projet ?
We have completed the design of our system as well as prototype testing in rural India. To date, we have proven the biometrics work at a high reliability rate and that the technology can stand up to the harsh environments for which it was specifically designed. The currently ongoing pilot project has the system deployed in two regions in southern Benin. Collectively, we are covering a total population of roughly 400,000 people. Upon successful completion of the pilot project, we expect to be prove that we reduced vaccine wastage, increased the coverage rate and reduced the total vaccination system cost per fully immunized child.
Quelles sont vos prévisions en termes d'impact au cours des cinq prochaines années ?
In the next five years, we expect to have the system deployed at a national scale in at least several medium-size countries. We also expect to have sub-national projects in another dozen countries, with plans to scale those up to national coverage. In total, we expect that our systems will be covering a total population of 50-100 million people. One key benefit will be a reduction of the vaccine wastage rate, the implication of which is that a country can immunize more people with the same number of vaccines. Coverage level goes up (more children get immunized) and the cost efficiency goes up (higher coverage at the same cost).
Les meilleures propositions possèdent un programme solide détaillant leurs prévisions pour atteindre et suivre leurs objectifs de croissance. Identifiez vos objectifs à 6 mois pour accroître vos résultats
Demonstrate success on a small scale and build foundation for continued growth
Définissez les trois tâches principales à accomplir pour atteindre ces objectifs à six mois
Tâche 1
Complete pilot project in Benin and publish results
Tâche 2
Begin larger deployments in two new countries
Tâche 3
Initiate partnerships with at least six organizations that have operations in new countries
Et maintenant, voyez les choses en plus grand ! Identifiez vos objectifs à 12 mois
Identify and resolve issues faced as projects are brought to national scales
Définissez les trois tâches principales à accomplir pour atteindre vos objectifs à 12 mois
Tâche 1
Work with partners to draft and approve a plan for ramp-up from pilot project to national scale
Tâche 2
Build a detailed cost model for what is required to scale (hardware, training, logistics, etc.)
Tâche 3
Drive down unit costs at least 50% by completing another design iteration and initiating new procurement strategies
Viabilité
Quels sont vos différents partenariats ?
Our most fruitful partnerships are with the managers and implementers of frontline health service delivery. We work closely with the WHO and UNICEF at both the country level as well as at international and programmatic levels. Within each country, we also work directly with representatives from the Ministry of Health and other NGOs that operate health facilities. We are also leveraging the network of some of our funders (e.g. Gates Foundation) to forge new relationships with other organizations merging innovation and health care in developing countries.
Actuellement, votre projet cible-t-il d'autres populations, lieux ou marchés spécifiques ? Si oui, lesquels et pourquoi ?
In the long term, we target the 73 GAVI-eligible countries, which are all of the countries with a per capita GNI of under $1,500. In the short term, we are ensuring that we validate the impact of our system across a broad range of environments, geographies, and levels of infrastructure. We have plans for projects in three different countries, each of which presents unique challenges. We have a pilot project in Benin and will be initiating new projects in the next few months in Nepal and Ecuador.
Quel environnement et quels facteurs organisationnels internes font la réussite de votre projet ?
We give our team significant freedom and empower them to make decisions and plans. Clearly this only works because we have been very selective as to who we bring on board; this is not an environment in which most will thrive, or even survive. We also embrace both lean and flat organizational principles. No one has to report to an office; we all work remotely and at our own pace and in our own preferred style. We also do not burden the organization with strict reporting structures. Everyone involved knows what the end goal is and they have been given the power to make that happen.
Expliquez plus en détails les besoins et les offres indiqués ci-dessus ou proposez un type d'aide non mentionné dans la liste
Funding is an issue for every organization, non-profit and corporate alike. I think it goes without saying that it is a constant stressor and one that too often takes time away from our people making a real impact. In addition to funding, a major need is building relationships with other NGOs or government agencies that have boots on the ground in these countries providing the vaccinations.
 | il y a 57 semaines Améliorer l'immunisation dans les pays en voie de développement has been chosen as a winner in Innovations for Health: Solutions that Cross Borders. |
| il y a 70 semaines Emily Bosland said: Thanks, Mark, That's great to hear, and very interesting! -Emily about this Competition Entry. - lire plus > |
| il y a 70 semaines Mark Thomas said: Marzena, Thanks for taking the time to read and comment. The system was designed for the most remote and infrastructurally-lacking ... about this Competition Entry. - lire plus > |
| il y a 70 semaines Mark Thomas said: Emily, Thanks for reading our entry and great question about the cultural acceptance of biometrics! Early in our design process and up ... about this Competition Entry. - lire plus > |
| il y a 70 semaines Marzena Zukowska said: Hi Mark, This is a very interesting project that I greatly enjoyed reading about. One of the questions that arose as I was reading your ... about this Competition Entry. - lire plus > |
| il y a 71 semaines Emily Bosland said: Hi Mark, I enjoyed reading your well thought-out entry! I was wondering if your team has encountered any issues with cultural ... about this Competition Entry. - lire plus > |