MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Solution Name:

Virtual Care for Metabolic Diseases

One-line solution summary:

Tech-Medo Virtual Care will support continuity of care of the Inherited Metabolic Diseases' patients during and beyond COVID-19 pandemic.

Pitch your solution.

Tech-Medo Inherited Metabolic Diseases Virtual Care will enhance the current care model of Inherited Metabolic Diseases (IMDs) patients by providing initial insights into a patient’s condition, potential diagnosis, and care plan, virtual visits will help providers streamline subsequent in-person visits.

1- Tech-Medo Inherited Metabolic Diseases Virtual Care is especially important during the Covid-19 pandemic, when only patients with the most critical conditions should go to doctors’ offices or medical centers for in-person consultations.

2- Tech-Medo Inherited Metabolic Diseases Virtual Care will reduce costs (transportation, missed work), improve access, and increase efficiency.

3- Relatively few specialists are typically located in urban areas, making it difficult for patients outside those geographies to seek care. Tech-Medo Inherited Metabolic Diseases Virtual Care will make it easier to access these specialists and eliminates added costs and burdens on families.

4- Patient Education.

5- Improvement of Medication adherence

6- Patient's Nutritional Management

What specific problem are you solving?

Inherited Metabolic Diseases (IMDs) often begin in childhood, continue throughout life, are disabling, difficult to diagnose, and have a significant burden on children, their careers, health professionals and health resources, and the community.

For Pakistani families affected by IMDs there is paucity of appropriate health services. Families affected by are often isolated, stigmatized, and stressed emotionally and financially.

Like many rare diseases, there are only a handful of specialists nationwide, or even worldwide, who have expertise in Inherited Metabolic Diseases (IMDs) treatment. As a result, patients often are forced to travel long distances to access their treating providers. Such travel involves significant expenses, time off from work and logistical challenges. For Inherited Metabolic Diseases (IMDs) patients who are immunocompromised, it may not even be safe for them to travel these distances.

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has disrupted every aspect of our life. Due to the pandemic situation, they have experienced (and experiencing) an extreme inadequacy of regular clinical services, counseling, and therapies they need, which have made their life more vulnerable and feel more marginalized. Besides, the clinicians, researchers, and scientists working on rare genetic diseases face extra challenges due to the pandemic.

What is your solution?

Tech-Medo Inherited Metabolic Diseases Virtual Care will support quality continuity of care of the Inherited Metabolic Diseases' patients during and beyond COVID-19 pandemic.

Tech-Medo Inherited Metabolic Diseases Virtual Care will connect all the stakeholder of care delivery under one information domain and helps them to provide quality, affordable and accessible care to inherited metabolic disorders (IMDs) patients.

Through Tech-Medo Inherited Metabolic Diseases Virtual Care, Inherited Metabolic Diseases (IMDs) patients will interact with care giver remotely from their home, where real time patient monitoring data will transmit to care giver through the platform. Monitoring Inherited Metabolic Diseases (IMDs) patients remotely with clinical-grade sensors and collecting data on numerous physiological signals will improve clinical decision-making for providers.

Tech-Medo RPCMS is a unique platform, where multiple types of data will be stored at One Location ranging from Doctor Prescriptions, Labs Test Reports, Medical X-rays, and with other relevant information easily accessible to patients and related health providers, anytime, anywhere and from any device.

Tech-Medo Virtual Care consists of following key components

Personal Medical Device with a Bluetooth module,
Patient Mobile App,
Provider Mobile App
AI powered Integrated Electronics Medical Records System

Tech-Medo Virtual care is Siemens Innovation Think Tank Certificate Program award’s winner.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

Inherited metabolic disorders (IMDs) encompass a group of disorders due to defective metabolic processes.

Tech-Medo Inherited Metabolic Diseases Virtual Care aims to serve underserved communities of Sindh Province, Pakistan in particular and low income countries around the world in general, where hospitals are understaffed and staff is often undertrained.

Pakistan is a South Asian country and the sixth most populous nation in the World, having a population of over 216 million. The country has four provinces; Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Consanguineous marriages and endogamy are prevalent in Pakistan irrespective of socio-economic and educational background of different ethnicities. Consanguinity is present in 65% of all marriages and is a major contributor to both early and late morbidity and mortality.

The WHO has identified Pakistan as one of 57 countries with critical shortages of health care providers across the globe. The physician to 1000 person ratio in Pakistan is 0.8 as compared to 2.4 in USA and the total per capita health expenditure for Pakistan is USD 39 as compared to USD 8895 in USA.

Health care management in Pakistan is primarily the responsibility of the provincial government. However, planning and formulation of national health policies are under the federal government’s control. The health care system is dichotomized into a small under-utilized public sector financed by the state and a large independent for profit private sector that accounts for 80% of all outpatient health care, for which patients have to pay out of pocket. Thirty-four percent of the population is urban having some access to effective health care services.

Infant and under five mortality rates of Pakistan are 74 per 1000 and 89 per 1000 live births. Birth asphyxia, still birth, pneumonia, diarrhea, sepsis, neonatal tetanus and congenital birth defects are attributed major causes of neonatal and infant mortality in developing countries. Partly as a result of the attention afforded to these problems, IMDs have been relatively ignored by both the government as well as the private sector.

There is no national birth defect or metabolic diseases registry established in Pakistan nor is there a newborn screening program for any IMD in any of the four provinces. Before 2013, only rudimentary metabolic testing was available and though this has recently marginally expanded, there is little clinical expertise available for diagnosing and treating patients with IMDs. Treatment options in the form of food for special medical purpose (FSMP) and the availability of orphan drugs is a constant challenge.

These factors have resulted in a difficult situation for physicians, parents and families many of whom are faced with a gloomy prognosis when given a diagnosis of a ‘non-specific IMD’ with little or no counseling about the prognosis or inheritance of the disease. Consequently, most cases are undiagnosed and result in either death or irreversible psychomotor retardation.

For Pakistani families affected by IMDs there is paucity of appropriate health services. Families affected by are often isolated, stigmatized, and stressed emotionally and financially.

Like many rare diseases, there are only a handful of specialists nationwide, or even worldwide, who have expertise in Inherited Metabolic Diseases (IMDs) treatment. As a result, patients often are forced to travel long distances to access their treating providers. Such travel involves significant expenses, time off from work and logistical challenges. For Inherited Metabolic Diseases (IMDs) patients who are immunocompromised, it may not even be safe for them to travel these distances.

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has disrupted every aspect of our life. Due to the pandemic situation, they have experienced (and experiencing) an extreme inadequacy of regular clinical services, counseling, and therapies they need, which have made their life more vulnerable and feel more marginalized. Besides, the clinicians, researchers, and scientists working on rare genetic diseases face extra challenges due to the pandemic.

They struggle to find appropriate physicians knowledgeable about the disease’s pathophysiology, the natural course of the disease, and epidemiological information to manage them. Also, many of the individuals with rare diseases may struggle to receive an early diagnosis and suffer the consequences.

Virtual Care offers advantages for people with rare diseases, as the number of expert health providers for a given rare disease is often limited, meaning patients can travel long distances for appointments.

Rare disease patients also often take medications that compromise or weaken their immune systems, raising a risk of infection with in-person visits to hospitals or clinics, and of serious coronavirus complications.

Tech-Medo Inherited Metabolic Diseases Virtual Care will facilitate, in following ways

Increase physician and healthcare provider accessibility to rare disease patients through virtual clinics and at-home meetings.
Since <1% of the newborns in Pakistan are screened for such conditions, through this solution, newborns screening will be increased to 5-10%.
Optimize healthcare provider time by automating analysis of patient specific health metrics.
Personalize rare disease patient therapeutic exercises through a tunable environment for both the patient and physician.
Provide real-time rare disease patient feedback through web-based analytic dashboards.
Provide engagement through virtual environments to aid in physical, functional, cognitive or behavioral exercises.
Enable a standardized platform for collecting remote health data.
Treatment protocols training to approx 1000 doctors and medical staff.

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Address the unjust and disproportionate burden of rare diseases faced by disinvested communities and historically underrepresented identity groups

Explain how the problem you are addressing, the solution you have designed, and the population you are serving align with the Challenge.

Tech-Medo Inherited Metabolic Diseases Virtual Care for Inherited Metabolic Diseases (IMDs) patients will facilitate quality and continuity of care during and beyond COVID-19 pandemic through reduce cost, improve access and reduction in frequent in-person visits through connecting all the stakeholder of care delivery under one information domain.

Eases the burden of travel and provide greater access to providers.
Optimize healthcare provider time by automating analysis of patient specific health metrics.
Medication Management
Provide real-time rare disease patient feedback through web-based analytic dashboards.
Special Education for Inherited Metabolic Diseases (IMDs) patients
Patient's Nutritional Management
Tech-Medo RPCMS will monitor and document compliance

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

Islamabad, Pakistan

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Pilot: An organization deploying a tested product, service, or business model in at least one community.

Explain why you selected this stage of development for your solution.

Pakistan is 5th largest population and 50 percent does not have access to the healthcare. COVID-19 pandemic has impacted care delivery and people living in rural and sub urban areas were the most effected to have basic healthcare.

TechMedology in collaboration with Shine Humanity (a public charity organization) https://shinehumanity.org/ is supporting to provide the care to population who don't have access to proper healthcare services due to affordability and reachability issues.

Tech-Medo Electronics Medical Records System right now is being piloted at one clinic that is serving at average 300 patients per day. To support Sindh's Inherited Metabolic Diseases (IMDs) patients and extend their healthcare delivery services to remote areas where healthcare facilities are limited, they approached Tech-Medo to implement their Remote Patient Care Management System which is targeted to building resilience in healthcare delivery in the on-going and beyond COVID-19 scenario.

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Zahid Ali - CEO Tech-Medo