EVA: Equity, Voice Agency

doctHERs

EVA: Equity, Voice Agency

EVA is an AI platform that matches the underutilized capacity of women HealthCare Providers (doctors, etc.) to the needs of marginalized communities.

Karachi, Pakistan

PAK

Hybrid of for-profit and nonprofit

doctHERs solves for 2 major market failures: Market Failure 1 (the 'Supply Side'): Over 400,000 female healthcare providers (HCPs including doctors, therapists, pharmacists, etc.) are excluded from the global health workforce due to: (i) hostile/toxic work environments, (ii) rigid health systems that have not adapted to the agile workforce needs of Generations XYZ, (iii) parental care and child care responsibilities and (iv) socio-cultural barriers. The ‘unrealization’ of this incredible human potential is outrageous in a world where over 2.4 billion people lack access to quality healthcare. The Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (MENASA) region is disproportionately impacted by this gender inequity, with over 200,000 women HCPs originating from this region alone and present in the MENASA diaspora in the US, UK, Europe, etc. Market Failure 2 (the 'Demand Side'): Over 600 million women and children living in the MENASA region lack access to affordable, quality healthcare.

doctHERs operates women-owned, AI-powered, solarized SMART clinics in factories and urban slums & rural communities exposed to extreme weather events due to climate change. These SMART clinics operate as hubs in a gender-inclusive health system that is digitally linked to female community health workers (CHWs – the spokes). The CHWs connect underserved communities to female HealthCare Providers (HCPs such as doctors and therapists) using AI-powered telemedicine and AI-powered digital, Point-of-Care (PoC) diagnostics (e.g. Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS, not to be confused with POTUS which would yield a different diagnosis :- ) AI is used for (i) clinical educational purposes to build the capacity of the female HCPs and CHWs and (ii) to match beneficiaries to available HCPs using predictive analytics. The female CHWs also provide their low-income communities with access to Fast-Moving Consumer goods (FMCGs), consumer health products, solar lamps and medicines prescribed digitally by online (female) pharmacists linked to doctHERs’ network. The use of (solar) renewable energy also helps these underserved communities to adapt to climate change.

Our solution serves two key stakeholder groups: (i) Supply-Side: Female-HealthCare-Providers (HCPs, including doctors, therapists, licensed pharmacists and nutritionists). Over 500,000 female-HCPs are excluded from the global-workforce due to: (i) hostile/toxic work-environments, (ii) rigid health systems that have not adapted to the agile workforce needs of Generations XYZ and Alpha, (iii) parental-care and child-care responsibilities and (iii) socio-cultural barriers that discourage the participation of women in public-facing work-venues. There are over 200,000 women-HCPs of Middle-Eastern, North-African and South-Asian (MENASAN) origin who are not participating in the global-workforce. They are either located in their countries-of-origin (~150,000) in the MENASA-region or in the MENASAN-diaspora. Over 20,000 MENASAN HCPs who are women-of-color, live in the US and are excluded from the US workforce. (ii) Demand-Side: Low-income beneficiaries who (i) work in factories in peri-urban industrial zones, (ii) live in peri-urban-slums and urban-slum 'colonies' and (iii) live in rural-areas. These beneficiaries are predominantly women-and-children (>80%) with household-incomes between $2-and-$5 per day. Over 600,000 low-income-beneficiaries are present in the MENASAN-region alone. There are an additional 500,000 low-income-beneficiaries located in Sub-Saharan-Africa (SSA), ASEAN and Latin-America who doctHERs plans to serve once it has scaled its impact across MENASA starting with India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh.