What is the name of your organization?
ReAct Asia Pacific
What is the name of your solution?
Antibiotic Access Tool (AAT)
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
A WhatsApp-based AI digital tool empowering communities and health systems with real-time access to antibiotic availability.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
IND
What type of organization is your solution team?
Nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and inequitable healthcare is a common problem in LMICs. Antibiotic stock-outs at public health facilities impact timely initiation of appropriate and/or incomplete therapy. Furthermore, delayed/incomplete data entry on the real-time availability of antibiotic stocks situation and a mismatch with the actual demand on ground (particularly at community level), back end supply of antibiotics, leaving frontline health workers without actionable information for patients care.
These challenges may also result in increased out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE), with patients accessing hospitals and pharmacies in neighboring locations including private hospitals. The gaps highlights the urgent need for a community-responsive antibiotic access system which is more transparent, efficient, and sustainable.
Andhra Pradesh, an Indian state with a population of over 53 million, has a predominantly rural demographic (nearly 70%) and with a limited access to healthcare. Despite substantial investments in public health infrastructure and digital systems such as the Health Management Information System (HMIS), the state continues to experience recurring stock-outs of antibiotics, particularly in Primary and Community Health Centers (Reference from audit report, India’s Comptroller and Auditor General).
We propose to address this mismatch between this demand and supply for antibiotics at the level of community health systems.
What is your solution?
Our proposed solution is a WhatsApp chatbot - an AI based digital platform, designed to integrate multiple facility-level stock data allowing real-time availability and forecasting of antibiotics at public health facilities, thus bridging critical gaps between medicine supply and its availability for the patient.
With a multilingual and user-friendly interface, the platform allows district officials, facility doctors, pharmacists, community health workers (ASHAs and ANMs) to access real time antibiotic stock information at their centers as well as the vicinity. In addition, predictive algorithms (also an inbuilt feature) would help to analyze historical usage trends to forecast demand and flag stock-outs. Automated alerts will be triggered when stock levels fall below pre-set thresholds, thus guiding officials within the drug warehouse for replenishing and meeting the patient demand .
The community health workers would be trained to use the WhatsApp chatbot and inform patients about the nearest facility with availability of required antibiotics. This would ensure timely initiation of antibiotic therapy and also minimize any OOPE including dependance on private sector. Furthermore, the proposed tool would support strengthening of antibiotic supply chains and reduce wastage, and control healthcare costs.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Our Antibiotic Access Tool will primarily serve the following beneficiaries:
1. Community Healthcare Workers and Patients
Community health workers would obtain real time information on nearest sources where prescribed antibiotics can be obtained by the patients. This would help to further guide the patients, particularly those from rural and underserved areas, thus significantly reducing treatment delays as well as OOPE (Patients can procure free antibiotics from government health facilities instead of purchasing from private pharmacies).
This solution will drive equity, enhance patient outcomes, lower economic burdens on families, address unmet needs, and improve antibiotic stewardship, at both facility and community levels.
2. Hospital Staff (Doctors, Nurses, Pharmacists)
Through the proposed tool the hospital staff would have immediate visibility to antibiotic stock levels, and can proactively manage indents, and thus ensuring continuous availability of medication. This would improve stewardship practices and help to reduce the rising AMR risks. Predictive analytics embedded in our solution would support effective demand forecasting, reduce emergency procurement costs and enable more efficient allocation of limited healthcare resources.