Disease Surveillance & Community Healthcare for underserved

According to the WHO, 1.9 billion people across 57 developing nations are currently affected by inadequate healthcare coverage. 

Amongst LMICs, India has a large underserved population with 69% of its rural communities dependent on the public health system. Disease burden in these communities for Communicable & Non Communicable diseases ranges from 60% for the former and 77% respectively, translating to more than 5.8 million lives lost annually.

Contributory factors for limited access to affordable care  in India may include the following:

• 80% of 1.04 Million doctors work in cities. Shortage of 600,000 across the country (National Health Profile, 2018)

• The Nurse: Patient ratio is 1:483, reflecting a deficit of 2,000,000 nurses (National Health Profile, 2018)

• Only 37% of rural communities are within 5 Kms of a health centre

Bridging the care delivery gap for the underserved communities that seamlessly covers the test - treat - track continuum for communicable & non communicable diseases effectively is the focus area that Healthkon solutions target.

Digitally transforming the disease surveillance process by integrating IoT enabled hand-held devices with a comprehensive mobile health platform evaluates individuals within communities for communicable & chronic diseases. Manual inputs are completely obviated as records are created and updated electronically on site inspite of very limited bandwidth.

Mobile health solutions are designed for low bandwidth transactions and require 3G / 4G signals for operation in the field. An offline store & forward flow is also enabled in these mobile applications for no signal zones.

Consequently, individuals assessed as medium or high risk are treated at community health centres with the help of portable, in-house developed diagnostic devices that can be deployed at the point of care, by the bedside, for remote monitoring and tele-consultation by doctors in a hub & spoke arrangement, again with very limited bandwidth.

The mobile application that integrates these diagnostic devices is capable of providing a live 12 channel EKG feed in addition to past trends on various health parameters to the remote Doctor. Tele-consultation with the point of care is seamless and enabled within the same application.

Dashboards enable effective monitoring of programs and provide guidance on focus areas to address individual & community health. 

Healthkon solutions transform last mile access to equitable healthcare for underserved rural communities in LMICs. India for example has a rural population of 890 million who are predominantly underserved due to poor healthcare coverage in distant communities where 

• Doctor to patient ratio is 1:10,926 as against a recommended ratio of 1:1000

• Nurse to Patient ratio is 1:483 with an identified shortage of 2 Million nurses

• Only 37% of the rural population lives within 5 Kms of a health centre 

Healthkon digitally transforms the care delivery mechanism by following the test -treat - track continuum

• screening of people in communities with minimal infrastructure requirements 

• enabling risk evaluation for treatment by connecting these individuals to the community health centres 

• Follow up referrals as required to district hospitals

Impact:  Over the past 6 months, more than 100,000 people were evaluated across 150 health centres in 16 districts of an Indian state for risk due to infectious and non-communicable diseases. Of these, an estimated 35 - 40% have been identified for further evaluation and treatment.

We have successfully provided access to primary care and disease management closer home, building trust between communities and the public health system. 

Quicker and easier access to health intervention and critical care through the public health system has reduced out-of-pocket expenditure for the rural BoP. 

Healthkon has digitally transformed last mile access to communities over the years by systematically implementing pilots and programs for the underserved across rural India which today reaches millions of people at villages and primary health centres.
The journey has been filled with learning and constantly improving upon past experiences in addition to the changing dynamic during and post covid.
Our team comprises proven professionals in Design thinking and product development, clinical practise at missionary hospitals and mission critical operations focused veterans. Feedback on needs of the underserved communities have been gauged by being engaged at location during implementation of each pilot or program over the past 4 years. 
The Healthkon Team:
- Pranay Garg, Founder 
Veteran who is widely traveled for understanding pain points in healthcare access within underserved rural communities. Spending time within these communities during the ideation phase helped cement specifics for the MVP. A business manager in the emerging markets for a Fortune 100 company between 2006 - 15, his understanding of global issues and path to deal with them has helped frame the offering in alignment to SGD 3 of UNDP.

- Dr Varsha Kiron MD, DM (Card), DNB (Card), Advisor Clinical Practice is an Interventional Cardiologist who has served in a Missionary hospital that serves millions of underserved people and he comprehensively understands both the patient and doctor journey to alleviate pain points of access and delivery to healthcare in underserved communities. He works closely with Healthkon for product enhancement in terms of clinical needs.

- Dhruv Garg is an inventor/innovator who graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University. Engaged in moonshot projects at Google in Mountain View, he has patents granted in the IoT domain. Dhruv heads product strategy at Healthkon.

- Ranjith Daitha is an experienced tech architect and scrum master who heads tech delivery. He has significant experience at tech giants such as Accenture and Oracle.

- Deepika Karan is a young electronics engineer who has a keen interest in business analytics and social entrepreneurship. Her quest for creating impact at this young age brings commitment and empathy for the underserved and she has dedicated her time to developing differentiated solutions that help digitally transform the care delivery  process.

Healthkon envisions greater access to affordable & quality care for the underserved communities across the developing world. Having proven our solution across communities in the Indian context, albeit at a limited scale, our aspirations to implement these solutions in similar geographies can fructify as an MIT Solver. 

Market access, refined business models coupled with a very strong network, would enable us to achieve our goals by applying to Solve.

Digitally transforming public health solutions to improve last mile access for affordable & quality care being the goal, we deploy a connected care approach that enhances disease surveillance & community health by providing the following:

• Mobile health solutions that integrate ruggedised hand - held devices for seamless registration and screening of the target population

• Risk evaluation of screened individuals

• Create and update health records for analysis of disease burden 

• Administrative web views for effective monitoring of execution in the field 

• Dashboards that track progress of program goals vs performance

Adopting this approach has helped governments enhance outreach in rural & tribal communities  for planning focused programs towards healthier communities. 

Connected Care has created simpler and more effective workflows for greater impact. This is a paradigm shift from the existing manual process which is time consuming and limited in its reach & impact.

Next Year:

• We currently enable nearly 8000 primary screenings a day across 5 states, impacting nearly 2.5 million rural population over the next year through current programs

• We will enable chronic disease management for an estimated 35 - 40% of the screened population identified at risk

Next 5 Years: 

• Screen nearly 10 million people across Indian states to risk evaluate for chronic and infectious diseases within rural communities

• Disease prevention and control for nearly 35 - 40% of Medium & High risk individuals among the screened population

Healthkon aims to contribute and measure its impact towards SDG 3, and in particular:

Target 3.3: Combating epidemics of infectious diseases

Indicators to measure impact:

• % change in Tuberculosis incidence per 1000 population

• Increase in interventions for neglected tropical diseases

• Change in Malaria incidence per 1000 population 

Target 3.4: Reduce premature mortality due to noncommunicable diseases

Indicators to measure impact:

• % change in premature deaths due to NCDs as a proportion of all deaths due to NCDs

• Decrease in mortality rate due to Cardiovascular, Cancer, Diabetes and Chronic Respiratory disease

• Change in disability adjusted life years (DALYs) for persons suffering from NCD

Target 3.8: Combating epidemics of infectious diseases

Indicators to measure impact:

• % population covered 

• # of people treated for various health conditions 

• # of people funneled into the care continuum with greater access to affordable quality healthcare

• Change in proportion of population with large household expenditures on health as a share of total household expenditure/income 

Our solution will impact the problem as illustrated through logical links between activities, outputs and outcomes concluding with an impact statement.

Evidence on current impact of ongoing rural outreach program in a North-Eastern state in India over past 4 months:

• Disease Surveillance across 16 districts comprising 150 health centres has screened nearly 100,000 people within rural communities.
• Risk evaluation for Communicable and Non-Communicable Diseases in Medium and High risk categories ranges between 37 - 42%.

• Computer vision based deep learning algorithm - X-ray interpretation for infectious disease detection

• Cloud based scalable and flexible EHR for interoperability and powerful analytics

• Medical IoT - Connected care devices to sense, acquire vitals and seamlessly update

• Android applications with language-agnostic UI - available with offline store-and-forward functionality

•  ICT – Communication bandwidth for mobile applications and video interactions

Healthkon encourages competence based diversity in the leadership team. Deepika heads business analytics and account management as a part of the extended leadership team while being a young Electrical & Electronics graduate. Her sense of ownership and ability to perform above & beyond her responsibilities has seen her included in every decision making process.

Healthkon provides equal opportunity to all based on their competence and keenness to learn which drives selection and execution within groups

Healthkon improves last mile access to primary care for underserved communities by detecting more than 75% disease burden to facilitate health interventions by caregivers through the test - treat - track continuum. Governments and program sponsors get more bang for their buck by comprehensive IoT-enabled screening and diagnostic solutions with AI enabled insights that provide guidance to ensure individual health as well as healthy communities for greater impact.

The solution integrates healthcare IT with medical devices developed in-house for screening & diagnostics from risk evaluation to care delivery. 

Deliverables to the caregivers include the following:

• Mobile applications integrated with handheld devices for screening within the community by health workers 

• Create and update health records for individuals with portability across communities

• Risk evaluation and diagnostics enabled tele-consults with remote doctors from community health centres in a Hub & Spoke arrangement 

• Sponsor dashboards monitoring program execution and community health statistics

An overarching cloud hosted solution enables data from mobile applications to populate databases that provide actionable insights for caregivers and sponsors.

The offering is priced as an annual subscription and includes provision of hardware and a SaaS platform per spoke (Center) associated with a given Hub. 50% GM is targeted.

The Hub / Command Center accesses the platform to connect remote Doctors to the spokes. Supervisory modules enable asset management, resource allocation including personnel at spokes and monitoring of program tasks.

Customers profiles include Governments, Corporations, Public Private Partnerships, NGO and CSR-driven healthcare programs for the underserved.

Healthkon is currently bootstrapped with initial funding from its Directors and an additional friends & family round amounting to less than $75000.

Having successfully piloted our offering and gained traction in an early stage, we currently sustain the business by selling products & services as a market intermediary to be deployed by state governments in the public health space.

A strong pipeline and high LifeTime Value (LTV) per enterprise customer provides predictability of revenue over the next 5 years and beyond. Penetrating newer regions and deeper into the Indian market aligns us for high growth and rapid scaling.

A gross margin of 50% on our offering covers all expenses in addition to allocating a bare minimum amount towards improving product & services.

Healthkon has booked revenue of $200K in the current fiscal year ending 3/31/22.

Bootstrapped without any institutional funding to date yet cash flow positive secures its position as a going concern as we strive for growth. 

The goal is to grow 5X YOY with the current business model and no additional funding.

Institutional funding can help in further refining the product & services aligned to regional needs and bringing on an A team. 

Our fiscal goal is to attain at least 5% market share of the obtainable market in India worth $38M over the next 5 years.