Healthcare and ICT - Telemedicine using Akaash Ubislate

Recently I participated in a B-plan contest at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, and got shortlisted for the next round as well. My plan is to provide healthcare services to patients in rural and sub-urban areas at low cost using technologies like tele-medicine and tele-diagnostics. These technologies are currently being used, but they are scattered and not aligned to each other. For example there is a tremndos effort being put by MIT-Media Labs Asia to put together a Health Management Information System (HMIS) along with a tele-medicine solution for rural areas. However, the lack of standardization of tele-medicine has put a roadblock to the success of this solution. India, in particular, lack the government will power to standardize the tele-medicine technology so that all the vendors, service providers, healthcare centers and patients can be brought to a single platform. Unless that happens, any effort in this direction will yield minimal results.

Nevertheless, my solution is more inclined towards usability issues of a healthcare service provider than the standardization issue. Currently, ICT based healthcare services at a rural hospital are provided using desktop computers. These computers are installed at the rural clinic/hospitals, and patients come to visit the hospital in order to get him/herself checked up. This solution is less convenient, entirely non-portable, expensive, and prone to theft of the equipment. Had it been a tablet PC kind of device instead of the desktop computer, the working of the system would have improved many folds. But again, tablet PC are more expensive than a desktop computer and not feasible in a country like India to award each rural doctor a tablet PC.

However, with the inauguration of Akaash Ubislate tablet PC by the Union Human Resource Minister a few months back, the aforementioned concept is very much feasible. My business plan revolves around this concept. Akaash is an Android OS based tablet PC with a cost of around $50. This is way less expensive than usual Apple iPad and affordable to the doctors in rural areas.

More on this in coming days when I will finalize my B-Plan.