Mejora de la Inmunización en los Países en Desarrollo

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Mejora de la Inmunización en los Países en Desarrollo

BeninUnited States
Tipo de organización: 
Sin fines de lucro / ONG / Sector Civil
Etapa del Proyecto:
Inicio
Presupuesto: 
$100,000 - $250,000
Website:
http://vaxtrac.com
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Resumen del Proyecto
Presentación del Proyecto!

Resumen conciso: Ayúdenos a presentar esta solución! Proporcione una explicación en 3 o 4 frases cortas.

VaxTrac provee registros de vacunación biométricos móviles en los países en desarrollo reduciendo el desperdicio de vacunas, previniendo muertes evitables

About Project

Problema: ¿Qué problema está tratando de abordar este proyecto?

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.

Solución: cuál es la solución propuesta? Por favor sé específico!

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.
Impact: How does it Work

Ejemplo: Guíenos a través de un ejemplo/s específico/s de cómo esta solución hace la diferencia; incluya sus actividades principales.

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.
Sustentabilidad

Mercado: ¿Quién mas está abordando el problema aquí descrito ? ¿Cómo difiere el proyecto propuesto de esos enfoques?

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.
Equipo

Historia fundacional

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.
Sobre ti
Organización:
VaxTrac
Sobre ti
Nombre

Mark

Apellido

Thomas

Sobre tu organización
Nombre de la organización

VaxTrac

País de la organización

, KY, Jefferson County

Países en donde este proyecto está creando impacto social

, LI

¿Cuánto tiempo ha estado operando la organización?

1-5 años

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Innovación
¿Cuánto tiempo se lleva poniendo en práctica tu iniciativa?

Operando entre 1-5 años

¿Cuál de las siguientes describe mejor la(s) barrera(s)s a la que da respuesta tu innovación? Elige hasta dos.

Costo, Calidad.

Impacto social
Por favor, describe el objetivo de tu iniciativa: un resumen de lo que están tratando de lograr

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.

¿Cuál ha sido el impacto de la solución hasta la fecha?

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.

Cuál es tu impacto proyectado para los próximos 5 años?

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).

¿Qué barreras pueden dificultar el éxito de tu proyecto? ¿Cómo planean superarlas?

Scalability is the single largest hurdle we have to overcome. We require a physical unit at every vaccination outlet, which generally translates to one unit per every 10,000-40,000 people. One step that we are taking is to reduce the cost of each unit; we already use cheap, easily-replaceable off-the-shelf hardware. We have also working to use low-end mobile phones as a field unit. Another step we are taking is to build comprehensive cost-benefit models. So if units are (relatively) expensive and we require many of them, we will at least show that the cost of the system is more than offset by the value of the improvement. Lastly, healthworker buy-in is critical to the widespread adoption so we have worked with end users every step throughout our design and testing process.

Las iniciativas ganadoras presentan un plan fuerte de cómo van a alcanzar y realizar un seguimiento del crecimiento. Identifica tus metas a seis meses para el crecimiento de tu impacto

Demonstrate success on a small scale and build foundation for continued growth

Identifica tres grandes tareas que tendrás que completar para llegar a las metas de seis meses.
Tarea 1

Complete pilot project in Benin and publish results

Tarea 2

Begin larger deployments in two new countries

Tarea 3

Initiate partnerships with at least six organizations that have operations in new countries

¡Ahora piensa en grande! Identifica tu meta de impacto a 12 meses.

Identify and resolve issues faced as projects are brought to national scales

Identifica tres grandes tareas que tendrás que completar para llegar a tu meta de impacto a 12 meses
Tarea 1

Work with partners to draft and approve a plan for ramp-up from pilot project to national scale

Tarea 2

Build a detailed cost model for what is required to scale (hardware, training, logistics, etc.)

Tarea 3

Drive down unit costs at least 50% by completing another design iteration and initiating new procurement strategies

Sostenibilidad
Cuéntanos sobre tus alianzas.

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.

¿Actualmente te estás dirigiendo a otras poblaciones, lugares o los mercados para tu innovación? Si es así, ¿dónde y por qué?

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.

¿Qué tipo de sistema operativo y factores internos de la organización hacen que tu innovación sea un éxito?

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.

Por favor, pon en claro las necesidades u ofertas que hayas mencionado anteriormente y/o sugiere categorías de apoyo que no están especificadas en la lista

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.