E HealthPoint Transforming Rural Healthcare

Congratulations! This Entry has been selected as a winner.

E HealthPoint Transforming Rural Healthcare

IndiaIndia
Organization type: 
for profit
Project Stage:
Scaling
Budget: 
$500,000 - $1 million
Website:
http://www.ehealthpoint.com
Share page with AddThis
Project Summary
Elevator Pitch

Concise Summary: Help us pitch this solution! Provide an explanation within 3-4 short sentences.

HealthPoint Services provides low cost,high quality basic healthcare & clean drinking water for low income communities via unique model leveraging technology

About Project

Problem: What problem is this project trying to address?

Problem 1)Low access to modern medicine in Rural areas-Doctor to Patient ratio is low in Urban & further 10 times lower in the rural areas(Average 1 Doctor for 60,000 people)Problem 2)High cost to see a Doctor in nearby urban areas-High cost to see doctors in town, plus loss in income, travel costs,and fees Problem 3)Network of Quacks/Local Unqualified Health Practitioners wherein the villagers visit them with diagnosis and treatment either non-existent or based on guesswork Problem 4)Low access to quality medicines About 67% of people dont have ready access to essential medicines and almost 20% of the drugs available are reportedly fake/low potency/sub-standard Problem 5)Lack of Safe Drinking Water-200,000 Villages have no clean water resulting in thousands of child deaths every year

Solution: What is the proposed solution? Please be specific!

The E HealthPoint addresses these unmet needs, based on market research that showed rural households in India spend an average of $ 42 per year out of pocket on (poor quality) healthcare and prior experience that shows they are willing to spend Euro $ 15-20 per year for safe drinking water. The E HealthPoint model is a for pay (fee for service) model and relies on use of modern technologies (including rural broadband, tele-medical software, low-cost point-of-care diagnostics, and inexpensive water treatment methods) and de-skilling of many aspects of primary care (through standardized procedures and thorough training of local staff) to bring costs within the ability/willingness to pay of most rural households. HealthPoint provides these services directly to individuals and households in the communities it serves, typically achieving at least 50 percent penetration of households within a few months and resulting a very high degree of economic , financial benefits to the community
Impact: How does it Work

Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.

The E HealthPoint bringS 5 critical health services to underserved rural communities:a)Safe drinking water, produced onsite by Reverse Osmosis & provided to families daily via a prepaid monthly subscription for $ 1.50 per Household ; b) Consultation with qualified doctors located in an urban telemedical center via 2-way video supported by electronic medical records, at $ 0.40 per consultation; c) Full onsite diagnostic laboratory capable of 70 different diagnostic investigations, at an average cost of $ 1 per test; d)Licensed pharmacy stocked with 250 medicines & Over the Counter (OTC) products, mostly low-cost generic medicines offered on price discounts to rural communities e) Responsible referrals to secondary healthcare facilities in public and private sectors HealthPoint builds and operates clusters of eHP units, each containing 1 clinic and 1 WaterPoint in a central village with 2-3 additional WaterPoints in smaller surrounding villages.The E HealthPoint has a significant social, financial and positive health impact for individuals & community while also creating 12-13 jobs per cluster (most for women) for local inhabitants . The mission of E HealthPoint is to enhance health and productivity in underserved rural communities and its goal is to transform rural healthcare by demonstrating the commercial viability , long-term sustainability and social impact of the eHP model at scale.
Sustainability

Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?

E HealthPoint has uniquely bundled clean water & healthcare services which arent offered by any of peers & competitors who generally offer only one or two out of the 5 services offfered by E HealthPoint. Price undercutting by quacks can be considered nearest in terms of competition . In addition to this,certain populist (but unsustainable) schemes announced by local government also tend to emerge as competition.
Team

Founding Story

Co-founders met at Santa Clara in 2008 , began sharing ideas & immediately noticed synergies in the ideas on delivering healthcare to rural communities at the base-of-the-pyramid through a well designed social enterprise.This was a combination of ideas on telemedicine-pharmaceuticals-diagnostics which needed demand-generation ,delivery of clean water,an obvious component of healthcare,that would bring customers to the clinics and generate both demand and revenue. Both Co-founders’ resources, skills, and capabilities were also complementary, as together they brought perspective on models for business at the base-of-the-pyramid and knowledge about willingness-to-pay and the much needed social marketing expertise, operational know-how, and experience with implementation. Both the co-founders recall,“We were sitting across the table from each other and we both thought, why don’t we do this together?” Essentially on the spot, they forged the partnership that became HealthPoint Services.
About You
Organization:
HEALTHPOINT SERVICES INDIA PVT LTD
About You
First Name

AMIT

Last Name

JAIN

About Your Organization
Organization Name

HEALTHPOINT SERVICES INDIA PVT LTD

Organization Country
Country where this project is creating social impact
How long has your organization been operating?

1‐5 years

The information you provide here will be used to fill in any parts of your profile that have been left blank, such as interests, organization information, and website. No contact information will be made public. Please uncheck here if you do not want this to happen..

Innovation
How long have you been in operation?

Operating for 1‐5 years

Which of the following best describes the barrier(s) your innovation addresses? Choose up to two

Access, Cost.

Social Impact
Please describe the goal of your initiative; outline what you are trying to achieve

E HealthPoint is a sustainable social business enterprise that has the goal of catalytically transforming rural & peri-urban healthcare in ways that support the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by employing a service delivery model that uniquely leverages technology in Healthcare, ICT and Water Sectors , thereby demonstrating demonstrating a sustainable service model to both public health authorities and capital markets . E HealthPoint intends to reach 100 Million beneficiaries by the year 2020

What has been the impact of your solution to date?

Our approach to both preventive and treatment services is enabling our customers to avoid expensive trips to cities, avoiding days lost at school or work, and preventing or ameliorating illness that could otherwise lead to suffering, hospitalization, lower productivity, and needless deaths. Through our extensive behavior-change social marketing, and presence of our modern facility, we are also gradually changing expectations and behaviors, which is key to permanent improvements in public health. Moreover, by building and equipping an E Health Point in a village, we are creating a missing permanent healthcare delivery infrastructure—and one that is sustainable and therefore scalable. Specifically some of the positive impact areas & benefits that would accrue are - Savings to clients , Employment opportunities in the Local Area , Enhanced productivity of clients , early stage diagnosis of potentially life-threatening diseases/ailments , reduction of load on government health services

What is your projected impact over the next five years?

1)E HealthPoint plans to establish more than 300 Clusters thereby expanding access to qulaity healthcare facilities to 5 Million people,of which serving 100,000 patients per month and expanding access to clean drinking water to more than 10 Million people. 2)It is expected that E HealthPoint model would get mainstreamed into the Public sector health-care delivery mechanism 3)Significant reduction in the number of Quacks operating in areas where E HealthPoint is present 4)Significant reduction in WaterBorne diseases
5) Significant financial savings for the communities - currently estimated in excess of $30 Million per annum by virtue of E HealthPoint facilities being available locally.
6) Generating direct & downstream employment for 10,000 personnel locally

What barriers might hinder the success of your project? How do you plan to overcome them?

Some of the barriers seen are: Policy changes by government towards providing free healthcare to all, Price-undercutting by Quacks , Attrition of talented middle level & field staff , Relatively Low attractiveness of this model for the conventional Venture Capitalists , Deep-rooted Consumer preference for reaching-out to Urban facilities . E HealthPoint considers that Healthcare becoming Free for All might not be sustainable , it provides high quality , differentiated services than quacks and also has devised engagement strategy for quacks;E HealthPoint recruits local/qualified personnel to reduce staff attrition and also provides incentive schemes; is operationally break-even now hence attractive for newer investors;consumer satisfaction resulting in preferred choice over urban visits

Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve and track growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact

Expanding range of services, Expanding Partnerships , Enhancing operational efficiency, 2nd Phase Communication Campaign

Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your six-month milestone
Task 1

Enhancing Operational Efficiency by better cost management,capacity building of team ,improved supply-chain & more use of IT

Task 2

Expanding range of services in health & wellness ,chronic disease care and management, expanded distribution of water

Task 3

2nd phase of Communication Campaign ,reinforce and reassure the existing customers , raise health awareness and call for action

Now think bigger! Identify your 12-month impact milestone

Faster Operational Breakeven for E HealthPoints, Increased adoption rate in users , expanding to 2 more countries outside India

Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your 12-month milestone
Task 1

Successfully integrating new services & products meeting customer needs thereby providing value for money

Task 2

Combination of new products/services revenue , communication campaign and cost management resulting in faster breakeven

Task 3

Stregthening local partnerships & alliances for rollout of E HealthPoint in 2 new countries outside India

Sustainability
Tell us about your partnerships

With Regional Government-supplementing their efforts for ensuring community health , Technology Partners: Athenahealth(athenanet clinic automation workflow software) , Dimagi provides Android software integration & CommCare software;Sensaris,West Wireless Institute;Reliance & Bharti Airtelfor broadband services. With Not for Profit:With mHealth Alliance+Ashoka Innovators for the Public+Public Health Foundation of India for improving maternal and child health. With For Profit Organizations: With P&G in a collaborative partnership Academia With the CEGA at the University of California Berkley

Are you currently targeting other specific populations, locations, or markets for your innovation? If so, where and why?

E HealthPoint has recently firmed-up local partnerships to implement its operations across two additional countries - One in Latin America and One in South East Asia . This is based on a careful selection with respect to problems experienced and need for solutions for low income group communities in these countries. The Problem areas comprise low access to doctors, diagnostics and genuine medicines and absence of clean drinking water - areas that are fully addressable by E HealthPoint's Innovative solution which has been successfully demonstrated in India during past two years .

What type of operating environment and internal organizational factors make your innovation successful?

1)E HealthPoint fosters innovation & creativity based culture with high degree of accountability and financial transparency.Accordingly,individuals & employee groups are encouraged to devise/design solutions that would challenge the conventional ones thereby delivering value for clients
2)The Core Values (3 C's)set is practised is -
a)Customer First- There is a primacy of the Customer/Client in everything that is designed/delivered with high emphasis on timely,high quality delivery b)Culture of Respect-for all stakeholders and individual team members and c)Continuous Improvement-regular efforts for making the activities better than before and emerging as best in the class 3)There is a significant emphasis on cost efficiency and rewards for the efforts that bring-in the same

Please elaborate on any needs or offers you have mentioned above and/or suggest categories of support that aren't specified within the list

Thanks ; the lists seem to be comprehensive