AIRMED - Healthcare Solution for NAHPs

Problem

Nursing and Allied Healthcare Professionals (NAHPs) are the backbone of a patient-preventive healthcare system but are under-utilized, under-valued, with a current worldwide shortage of 4.2 million NAHPs, resulting in 7.7 billion lost patient interactions- making healthcare unaffordable, in-accessible and vulnerable to disease threats- COVID19 caused 450,000 deaths.

Solution 

Airmed’s machine-learning platform utilizes intelligent data-driven decision-making to unlock NAHPs under-utilization, through an AI career progression coach, identifying skills gaps and nudging them to training, and peer-to-peer learning of disease treatment for preparation, protection and response against healthcare threats. Effective pandemic response requires extensive, inexpensive healthcare workforce, triaged by intelligent data. 

Positive Change 

(a) attracting more nurses through career progression pathways, 

(b) efficient decision-making from NAHPs data, representing 88% of healthcare interactions, 

(c) improved disease prevention, mitigation and preparedness through knowledge sharing, and 

(d) training- lowering cost, improving quality and strengthening resilience of healthcare systems to pandemics.

Scale of the Problem

Pakistan has 1/5th of required nurses compared to WHO’s minimum- with shortage of 600,000 nurses in Pakistan by 2030 (Punjab Health Agency). Our global shortage will be 12,900,000 nurses by 2035, resulting in loss of 28.3 billion nursing interactions.

NAHPs un-availability is a crisis, made worse by the pandemic. In addition WHO estimates that one of six nurses will retire within ten years, weakening resilience and disease threat response capabilities of healthcare systems and reducing affordability of primary care, creating urgent need for a holistic data, capacity building, performance management and matching system for NAHPs.

Affected People

In Pakistan alone, Airmed will positively impact 22 million patients and globally 550 million in 10 years. By 2030, global shortage of nurses is expected to reach 12.9 million.   

Factors Contributing to the Problem

Our solution addresses:

• NAHPs healthcare interactions with patients are a data black-hole and not tracked
• NAHPs shortage of 670K in Pakistan and 12.9 million globally by 2030, making primary and preventative healthcare systems vulnerable
• Lack of knowledge/good-practices share for disease treatment and safety
• In-efficient/ non-existent career pathways and matching between employers and NAHPs which makes nursing an unattractive profession Non-formal training and development mechanism

A NAHP career progression, performance management and intelligent nurse-hospital matching platform to capture healthcare data through NAHP interactions. Airmed applies data-sciences, AI/ ML, on data captured for efficient decision-making around geographical availability and skills gaps of nurses, nudging their training/ up-skilling, knowledge-sharing for disease treatment, protection of nurses to provide an effective disease response and preventative care system.

Our solution:

• Captures data of healthcare interactions between NAHPs and patients, enriching analysis of symptoms in hospitals, as well as mapping country level disease outbreaks with epidemiological/ spatial modeling

• Identifies specialities and locations of NAHPs shortage enabling employers and NAHPs to connect rapidly for “smart hiring”

• Provides rapid training and knowledge sharing for treatment and protection of NAHPs in COVID-19

• “Nudges” NAHPs to train/ up-skill through Airmed Academy and driving smart career progression pathways

• Uses performance evaluation tool to provide data points for nurse professional and financial progression

Technology

A Progressive Web Application (PWA), developed using Human-centred Design (HCD) to map and develop user journeys extracted from end-user FGDs to create engaging user experience. PWA has an agile and adaptive application development framework for building scalable data platforms across desktops/ mobile phones, with many native features for end-user benefits, including offline access.

Target-Population

0.142 million NAHPs in Pakistan or 20.7 million across the world. Each NAHP can impact 880 patients a year minimum or 124 million patient interactions in Pakistan alone.

Research-Done

Online surveys with 64 NAHPs, separately held 5 comprehensive FGDs with NAHPs in four cities, to collect data of experiences, technology usage, job searching, career planning and upskilling. During HCD phase, engaged additional 15 NAHPs, 7 hospital administrators and 6 home-care users to map user journeys for optimal user experience.

Interviews with Government’s Health Services Academy (HSA), National Institute of Health (NIH), Center of Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP) for effective NAHPs response in pandemics and developing NAHPs training opportunities.

Addressing-Needs

More & better quality NAHPs utilizing data generated by their healthcare interactions:

• Identifies skill specialties or locations of NAHPs shortage to bridge them with institutions for “smart hiring”
• Provides rapid training, knowledge sharing through peer networks for treatment or protection from COVID19
• “Nudges” NAHPs to up-skill through Airmed Academy, to reach higher career progression pathways
• Improved quality care to transform NAHPs from ‘bedside help’ to valued ‘patient owner’ Capture data of healthcare interactions between NAHPs and patients, enriching analysis of symptoms in hospitals, and mapping country level disease outbreaks

447,428 deaths by COVID19 have been recorded with 8.328 million infected (Johns Hopkins COVID19 Resource Center). It has highlighted fragility of healthcare systems and organizing disaster response at scale due to lack of:

(a) skilled human resources, 

(b) coordination between availability and need,

(c) finances.

Quality trained nurses are central to low cost, scalable disaster management solutions as NAHPs are more available than doctors and cost one-sixth. Thailand achieved low mortality of 0.8 / million due to effective use of NAHPs. Secondly using data sciences, Airmed will efficiently identify skills-gaps and allocate NAHP resources to areas of urgent need.

AIRMED is first systems-based private sector Pakistani effort creating a digital platform to: (a) capture NAHPs data, accounting for 88% of healthcare interactions, (b) up-skill in disease management, (c) strategic coordination by managers/policy-makers, and (d) create career pathways development. Leveraging data for decision-making, coordination coupled with up-skilling and professional mobility creates a lower cost scalable surveillance solution and health risk response. 

AIRMED is a smart ML platform matching NAHPs with potential employers, making hiring more meritocratic and efficient. Via CV builder tool, performance management capture and ML career progression algorithms, AIRMED will create forward-looking career pathways motivating nurses to gain skills. Lack of career mobility is key in de-motivation of NAHPs. 

AIRMED works to digitally collecting reliable healthcare interactions data through nurses. This creates patterns and repositories of data for decision-making making it the first evidence-based, nation-wide, multi-stakeholder framework for technology-enabled COVID19 emergency response that gives NAHPs a more central role.

These factors create a closed loop with job matching, performance evaluation, T&D and ML career progression, which feeds into the next job.

Competitors

We have no direct competitors in Pakistan and one of few in emerging markets, targeting only NAHPs.

“Incredible Health” and “Trusted Health” have a similar model, though are more online job centers for healthcare professionals, not having our holistic “closed loop” approach of job creation, performance evaluation, T&D and ML/ AI “nudged” career progression to take NAHPs to next level.

One of AIRMED’s core functions is to ensure information is available to NAHPs in time for them to take informed decisions and actions across the healthcare system. Big Data and AI plays a vital role in implementing such functionality. The quicker we can collect and disseminate useful information, the more efficiently and safely NAHPs can work and at present, halt the spread of COVID19. 

Core technology components that power AIRMED are:

• Big Data in Healthcare:  

When it comes to the processing of large data sets, Hadoop’s MapReduce programming allows for the processing of large volumes of data in a completely safe and cost-effective manner. Hadoop also triumphs over relational database management systems when it comes to the processing of large data cluster.

AIRMED collects data related to NAHPs’ profiles, skill sets, and activities, which is then used to recommend required candidates to care institutions using AI. We also collect patient information, through NAHPs,  such as symptoms and conditions upon arrival, using it to create a comprehensive registry that will help determine best care practices and also spread reliable information across the healthcare system.

• Artificial Intelligence: 

AIRMED provides personalized training courses and material according to NAHPs needs. AIRMED uses proprietary AI algorithms, with the help of Big Data, to identify what type of training is necessary to make NAHPs more efficient and responsive in patient care.

Through data collection, we can immediately identify factors associated with illness and outcomes, disseminate disease information, making intelligent predictions for developing rapid disease response trainings.

Digital health technologies can help us navigate and overcome the COVID19 pandemic and future epidemics. Two of these technologies are Big Data and AI. 

• AI to detect the spread of pandemic:

On January 6th, 2020, the CDC issued an alert about a flu-like outbreak in China, followed by WHO on January 9th. Since then, it became known as CoronaVirus and later COVID19 and the outbreak became a global pandemic. Not many people know that a Canadian health monitoring AI platform called the BLUEDOT beat both of them to the punch and issued a warning on Dec 31st, 2019; a full week before the world caught on. BLUEDOT didn’t just foresee the Wuhan outbreak; it correctly predicted the spread too. BLUEDOT did it by filtering through expansive amounts of foreign language news and reports, tracking animals and plant disease networks and by accessing global airline ticketing data to predict when and where the infected population would be travelling.

• Big Data to track possible infected cases:

Taiwan is using Big Data to track possible infected cases of COVID-19. The health insurance card will alert your doctor if you are a high-risk patient, e.g. colour red indicates a patient is under quarantine after coming into contact with an infected patient. There are four different colors for people with a travel history. In addition, the national health insurance administration integrated into the immigration database to effectively track possible infection through travel related records.

Pakistan has about 0.5 nurses/ 1000 people (WHO 2019).  According to WHO, minimum level for basic functioning of a healthcare system is 2.5 NAHPs/1000 people. This situation persists because of systematic failure in:

a) Providing quality training (Shershah Syed, 2019)

b) Offering career progression and decent work opportunities (Santosh Kumar, 2016: 33-36)

c) Attracting the right talent

The FGDs conducted by us highlighted a coordination gap between health departments, hospitals and NAHPs. Almost all NAHPs agreed on not utilizing a single digital space for recording data, recruitment, training, peer learning and performance evaluation.

AIRMED’s Theory of Change

A) Project Activities

1) Research

• Problem Identification Surveys

• NAHPs Focus Group Discussions 

2) App Development, with continuous feedback/ incorporating new requirements

3) Partnerships development with policy makers

• CERP/ Duke DevLab

• Health Services Academy (HSA)

• KCH UAE

• San Diego Design Lab

4) Fund-raising through grants/ partnerships

5) Meetings and awareness sessions with care organisations on App’s usefulness/ benefits 

6) Marketing

B) Output

1) A data-science driven digital platform focusing on NAHPs, functioning as one stop forum for health departments, hospitals and professionals to:

a) Source data on COVID19 by recording/ receiving data during health emergencies

b) Find and recruit NAHPs, matching with care needs

c) Connect nurses to trainings in health emergencies

C) Outcomes

a) Improved quantity and quality of NAHPs in care organizations 

b) Increased data for analytics/ decision-making

c) Coordination by policy makers/ healthcare managers in pandemics

D) Impact

NAHPs

a) Increased quality through better training

b) Increased quantity through more NAHPs

c) Less burden on NAHPs and Doctors due to increased healthcare staff

d) Improved service delivery in care organizations from increased NAHPs competency

e) Decrease on doctors burden as nurses will do minimum 10% of doctors’ work

Data and Policy Making

a) AIRMED captures 88% patient healthcare interactions, through NAHPs 

b) Improved response with better health information

c) Increased preparedness through awareness/ hygiene security

Uplifting Gender / Marginalized Community

a) 80% nurses are women and 60% belong to religious minorities

b) Improved employment generation and competency of the marginalized groups in Pakistan

The current number of people you're serving

AIRMED is in the active development stage of prototype. The App is developed based on (a) research and findings of focus groups, one on one interviews, (b) 7 years healthcare investing, not-for-profit and public health experience of the founder, (c) the feedback of end- users from human-centered design phase of mapping user journeys, to enabling it to better meet NAHPs’ and hospital requirements. Therefore, more NAHPs will use it because of the benefits it provides as per their requirements. 

Total registered on Airmed at 1 year

NAHPs: 10,000 

Hospitals: 17

No of nurses placed/recruited/trained at 1 year

Local - All Markets: 3,300 

Overseas - All Markets: 20 

Patients Impacted: 7,304,000 

 * Assuming 10 patients per nurse for 220 working days a year

Hospital Subscription for Performance Measurement Module at 1 year: 12 

Nurses Subscribed for the ML Career Progression Module at 1 year: 1,000 

Below stats are per country at the end of 5 years of operations, and we will be operating in 3 countries at end of 5 years.

Total registered on Airmed at 5 year

NAHPs: 54,654 

Hospitals: 230

No of nurses placed/recruited/trained at 5 year

Local - All Markets: 21,050

Overseas - All Markets: 330 

Patients Impacted: 46,309,245 

 * Assuming 10 patients per nurse for 220 working days a year

Hospital Subscription for Performance Measurement module at 5 year: 69 

Nurses Subscribed for the ML Career Progression Module at 5 year: 1,6396

The attached table gives a 5 year KPI/budget in terms of nurses reached, hospitals signed-on and patients impacted.

The numbers are per market and by end of year 5, we expect to be operating across 3 markets/countries:

Year 1:

Number of nurses placed: 3,320

Patients Positively impacted: 7.304 Million

Hospitals on Performance Evaluation System: 12

Number of Nurses on Career Progression Module: 1,000

Cities: 3

Year 5: Growth in one-market 

Number of nurses intelligently matched with organisations: 27,770

Patients Positively impacted: 61.093 Million

Hospitals on Performance Evaluation System: 59

Number of Nurses on Career Progression Module: 16.393

Cities: 20

The quantum and quality of healthcare data in year 5 will be very significant, impacting healthcare business models.

Approaches to Scale

AIRMED will be initially scaled up in Pakistan starting from one city to almost 20 in the next 4 years. The first phase of implementation will focus on ensuring quality and ensuring that AIRMED becomes known for being useful and beneficial among healthcare institutions and NAHPs in Pakistan and through its overseas hiring programs. From year 3 onwards, AIRMED will expand into three countries till the end of year 5, such as Malaysia, Bangladesh and UAE by replicating the model rolled out in Pakistan.

We foresee the following barriers upto and during the next five years:

Next Year:

• Delays in achieving targets: Although a schedule has been established to monitor project status, however the project may fall behind due to COVID19 issues and lockdowns

• Evolving circumstances and data on COVID19: Changes in healthcare practises, regulations as a result of COVID19, although digital nature of the product will make its dissemination and uptake more likely

• Slow uptake by Users: Possible issues if UI/ UX is not user friendly

• Financial: Significant amounts of funding and resources will be required during the marketing and on-boarding stage, which will be through personal visits to healthcare institutions and NAHPs and via digital media, BTL campaigns and offers. This will be labour intensive and financially expensive.

Next 5 Years:

• Technical: Usage of digital platform in low internet coverage areas, such as rural areas though we have covered it through offline PWA capabilities. Building an IT infra platform that can take 100x users data and usage

• Regulatory: (1) Compliance with future data protection and cyber security laws, (2) Public sector’s endorsement may be required to have the digital platform implemented via lady health workers and public hospitals.

• Commercial: (1) Low uptake from the public sector due to adverse sentiments on technology, (2) Lack of immediate financial incentives for NAHPs to use the platform

Next Year:

• Delays in achieving targets during COVID19: Put in place SOPs, including working from home during pandemic and technology development work can be done remotely

• Evolving  Changes to Healthcare System: Built on agile methodology to accommodate changes in design of the App. The product is based on extensive feedback from 50+ nurses, 7 hospital administrators with whom we are constantly engaging to keep abreast with the changes

• User dissatisfaction: Research team has been tasked with obtaining continuous NAHPs feedback on functionalities of the App. Necessary changes will be made based on the feedback received

• Financial: To address any funding challenges, we will focus on obtaining grants, winning business competitions, building strategic partnerships and engaging in low-cost activities. In medium run, equity participation/convertible debt is an option.

Next 5 Years:

• Technological hiccups and low connectivity: Rely on off-line usage of PWA and data upload when connected, will ensure the App uses minimal data 

• Regulatory and compliance – Make the APP HIPAA compliant, built in cybersecurity systems. Our Chief Strategy Officer is a lawyer

• Public sector resistance: We have on-boarded partnership of Healthcare Services Academy, CERP and Duke DevLab to emphasize our thought leadership, research and impact mandate.

• Low uptake from the public sector and lack of incentives for NAHPs to use the platform– Will conduct awareness and on-boarding sessions

• Operative – Incentives for hospitals to utilize AIRMED for recruitment will be provided, including discounts and free-look windows

Not Applicable

Full-time

Ahmad Jalal – CEO/Founder
Darakhshan Sheikh – CSO
Dr Farwah Aslam - Program Associate
Malik Waleed – Tech Team Lead/ Project Manager
Ali Hasan - CFO
Radika Premchand – Systems Analyst
Hasaan Anwar – Activation/ Community Lead
Ali Eqbal – Community Mobilizer

Part-time

Azam Masih - Nurse
Dr Naeem din - Medical Advisor
Ms. Layla Rahim - Head Nurse, National Institute for Cardiovascular Diseases

Board Advisors

Maj General Shahab Naqvi
Ex Commandant Armed Force PostGraduate Medical Institute, Head of QA Army Medical Corp

Maroof Syed
Seeded/ exited two tech ventures, BroadCom Corp and Texas Instrument

Christian Schumacher
CEO Kings College Hospital London, UAE

The team is diverse and unique in its skill set, bringing to the table operational, technical, medical, financial, legal and regulatory experience and capabilities for AIRMED’s development.

(I) Ahmad Jalal is a qualified Chartered Accountant, Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales, with BSc Economics, LSE and MSc Development Economics, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

He is highly experienced having:

• Developed in-ambulance tele-health services enabling en-route diagnosis and remote treatment from specialized doctors 

• Overseen recruitment, training and duties of 800 NAHPs across healthcare programs 

• Developed largest vocational skills training, graduating 13,000 students.

• Developed an App for community health workers to capture/ analyze healthcare field data

(II) Darakhshan Sheikh is a qualified transaction lawyer from the University of Bristol, with over 20 years of experience in advisory and information technology and data protection, employment and medical laws. 

(III) Malik Waleed has a BSc Computer Science, Bahria University, with:

• Specialization in object-oriented approaches to network and platform development

• Extensive background in full life-cycle of software development process, including requirement gathering, design, coding, testing, debugging and maintenance

• Proven track record of designing and implementing flexible solutions/ digital platforms which support frequent UI and functionality changes

(IV) Dr. Farwah Aslam is an MBBS from Gujranwala Medical College having:

• Practised as a patient focused doctor successfully diagnosing, treating and managing illnesses 

• Worked as a Research Fellow at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

• Developed curriculum and training materials for NAHPs’ training and development programs, including EMT and Nursing Assistants

• CERP (https://www.cerp.org.pk) is an independent data research and policy organization, with R&D expertise of Digital Systems. CERP has researched and is developing AIRMED as a PWA, with rigorous quantitative research and evidence-based design, from HCD phase of mapping user journeys to back-end development, along with UI/ UX, upto UAT and Go-live.  

• DevLab@Duke (https://www.devlabduke.com) connects Duke researchers with development practitioners to give timely input throughout project conceptualization, design, implementation and evaluation. DukeLabs and AIRMED are research partners to convert data captured into actionable insights that change behavior of nurses and employers. 

The collaboration will give NAHPs targeted information on training demanded by market and employers better information about nursing candidates' previous job performance. The Airmed/CERP/DevLab team will develop these interventions, testing using Randomized Controlled Trials to quantify impact on nurses' skills and careers, to adapt and improve design of future incentives to nudge nurses.

• Health Services Academy (HSA, http://www.hsa.edu.pk), a Government institute for training and development of healthcare professionals is providing support for on-line NAHPs training courses for “AIRMED Academy”, ensuring relevant training content as per Government standards.

• University of San Diego, Design Lab (https://designlab.ucsd.edu), is working on ground-breaking technology for  world-wide collection of COVID-19 data and information and AIRMED will integrate into this project as its Pakistan data partner.

• King’s College Hospital, UAE (https://kingscollegehospitaldu...), shall provide NAHPs’ training and development guidance and assistance in providing NAHPs’ employment opportunities outside Pakistan.

AIRMED works on NAHPs intelligent matching with organisations in need. Through our hiring feature, NAHPs can check where there is a need for them, based on job listings and AI matching with healthcare institutions for precise hiring. NAHPs are “nudged” on career progression pathways, encouraging them to train and upskill for higher salary opportunities/ growth. 

AIRMED provides value to NAHPs and hospitals. In pandemic situations, when hospitals are overburdened and cannot afford delays in hiring/ performance evaluation process, they will be able to quickly hire required resources via the platform. 

AIRMED will provide NAHPs an opportunity to earn the living they deserve, along with positively impacting society for the benefit of patients and the healthcare system.

Beneficiaries

• Key beneficiaries are NAHPs. AIRMED helps NAHPs in career progression, hiring opportunities and availing training/ up-skilling 

• Hospitals/ home care institutions who connect and hire NAHPs, as required. 

• Most important are patients who receive better quality care

Services

An online platform with following main components provided through a PWA, easily accessible through browser:

1. Hiring and Career Progression

2. Training, Development and Up-skilling

3. Performance Evaluation/Management

4. Community Development/Peer to peer knowledge share

5. Smart Data Collection and Analytics

Need

NAHPs have to fight an uphill battle in a profession with long hours, little recognition and slow career growth- with the added fear today of COVID19. AIRMED will provide career progression pathways and smart hiring, supplemented by training, development, up-skilling and performance evaluation, which will lead to better employment opportunities for NAHPs, both locally and abroad. 

Bringing MOney

Funding will be from a combination of different sources, including own-funding/ convertible debt investment and development grants to start the project. The purpose of injecting quasi-equity is to keep the interests and objectives of the entrepreneur aligned with the project. For further development, funding will be raised from other third parties, such as VCs. 

Along with injecting equity, we will apply for sustainable donations and grants. Our objective is to apply for grants that pertain to and are aligned with the areas that we are working in, such as healthcare, technology, training and development. As our product has components of R&D, capacity building, outreach and awareness which are low ROI and hence we are raising grants relating to healthcare, capacity building, systems resilience.

Selling products or services

AIRMED has the following revenue streams:

Fixed fee per hire from Pakistani Care Institutions

Fixed fee per hire from Overseas Care Institutions 

Subscription fee for training platform from Care Institutions/ NAHPs

Subscription fee for career development module from NAHPs

Data monetization revenue from selling insights to care institutes, public sector, research organisations

Raising investment capital

We will target potential investors/ VCs for equity investment in latter development phases of the project. 

 Lng term

We have a clearly defined revenue model which maximizes both sustainability and impact. We have diversified our revenue streams and allocated different expenses cautiously to reach the break-even stage in year 3. In addition to this, all earnings generated will be further reinvested into growth and scaling.

Our start-up has been formed by experienced professionals who have experience of public health, investment banking, private equity, executive management of local and international organisations. 

1) SOLVE has become a community of world's bravest social entrepreneurs and change-makers through applied technology, business and social sciences. Being in the community and taking advantage of the SOLVE programming will be a great learning experience for our founding team. The mentoring we will receive and experience of peers will help us avoid business model and technology mistakes. The technology talent for cybersecurity, HIPAA, AI/ML through MIT SOLVE is the biggest attraction.

2) I did the course “New Enterprises” at MIT in 2011 and the ecosystem of MIT will be conducive to the growth of AIRMED, for example by finding a CTO or founding team members from the SOLVE community or MIT. 

In addition, the recognition of winning SOLVE at the UN will enable us to build partnerships with WHO, UN, UN Foundation, GAVi and Gates Foundation that are big players in public health. 

3) We are currently seeking grants, donors and angel investors for USD 500K to support further development of the technological solution and establishing outreach across multiple cities. Winning MIT SOLVE can raise visibility and help us secure grant or angel funding to scale the model across Pakistan. 

Applying for SOLVE will help us achieve the idea, output, outcomes and impact of our App that matches with the goals of MIT SOLVE.

1) Technology and Public-Health

Seek experts and organisations with public health experience in innovative, advanced technological development to expand our operations and advisory board. Global health organisations can facilitate expansion of AIRMED into different healthcare systems while technology leaders can add to AI/ML/Big Data development as well as HIPPA and cybersecurity compliance.

2) Funding, Revenue-Model and Scale-up

Mobilization phase will require significant manpower and financial resources, during which healthcare institutions and NAHPs will be on-boarded and the ML/AI made more advanced to run the career progression, performance management algorithm. Therefore, we seek angel investors and venture capitalists in addition to technology entrepreneurs who have scaled technology platforms before.

3) Marketing-Outreach

We will also require media, CSR partnerships for spreading awareness/ on-boarding healthcare systems, nurses, entering into public-private-partnerships with governments. These partnerships will be valuable during Pandemics like COVID19 to record data (nurse interactions), disseminate information on areas of high need.

We will like to partner with the following institutes / forums / departments:

1) MIT D-Lab: to make our solution more practical and collaborative.

2) Gates Foundation: to strengthen public sector partnerships and get other funding sources

3) MIT Technology Review to get innovative ideas for improving audience connectivity with technology

4) Ministry of Health Pakistan to ease out the implementation phase and get higher number of buy-ins from hospitals and NAHPs

5) Singularity University we ended up as runner-up for one of their challenges and will like to develop a partnership with them to ameliorate our organizational backbone

6) New Enterprise Associate to diversify our funding portfolio during the start-up stage

7) Techstars to find support for our solution from a proven platform.

AIRMED came as a runner-up in Asia Pacific Grand Global challenge and now aims to cross the finish line

AIRMED’s operating-business model:

1. Capture NAHPs data for decision-making, planning, which is otherwise unrecorded 

2. Increasing the number of NAHPs to make healthcare affordable/accessible to all,

3. Strengthening the capacity and quality of NAHPs to make quality care accessible to all

4. Better coordination of NAHPs with healthcare system to match need with availability

5. Optimize smart matching of nursing with organisation requiring their skill

6. Improve efficiency of policy making by recording and disseminating valuable health related data coming from the large network of NAHPs, which are well distributed across the country

Above mentioned will improve preparedness and response against future health risks by putting nurses in the middle of emergency responses. This will be a scalable solution across the country, since nurses are more available than doctors and are low cost.

Elevate Prize will help AIRMED in all stages with resources, technical advice particularly advanced ML/AI computing, access to technology/scale-up experts and thought leadership of public health leaders as Board members as well as awareness outreach of the APP.  We will utilize the Elevate Prize funds for:

1) Funding 

1. App Upgradation, particularly for advanced ML/AI programming, HIPA compliance, cybersecurity testing

2. Hiring and training of operations staff for onboarding NAHPs

2) Marketing, Media and Exposure

1. Digital media campaigns, awareness sessions with nurse leaders

Board of Advisors from Public Health, Technology and Business Model Iteration/Scale-up

1. On-board global experts in technology, and scaling-up business models to our Board

WHO has declared 2020 as the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwifery due importance of quality and available nursing to achieving SDG 3 and the current shortage in nurses, expected to hit 12.9 million by 2030. In addition WHO states that one-in-six nurses will retire in ten years, highlighting the urgent need to attract more to nursing, training/upskilling and raising the respect for nursing. 

AIRMED’s outcomes fall in SDG3 due to its business model:

-  Increasing the number of NAHPs to make healthcare affordable/accessible to all,

-  Strengthening the capacity and quality of NAHPs to make quality care accessible to all

-  Better coordination of NAHPs with healthcare system to match need with availability

- Capture NAHPs data for decision-making, planning, which is otherwise unrecorded 

People’s Prize will help AIRMED in all stages with resources, technical advice particularly advanced ML/AI computing, access to thought leadership of public health leaders as Board members and awareness outreach of the APP.  We will utilize the Peoples Prize funds for:

1) Funding 

1. App Upgradation, particularly for advanced ML/AI programming, HIPA compliance, cybersecurity testing

2. Hiring and training of operations staff for onboarding NAHPs

2) Marketing, Media and Exposure

1. Digital media campaigns, awareness sessions with nurse leaders

Board of Advisors from Public Health, WHO/UN and Business Model Iteration/Scale-up

1. On-board global experts in technology, and scaling-up business models to our Board

2. Partnership of UNCompact, WHO, UN Foundation to expand service across countries and to secure public private partnership with governments