Peru: Respiratory conditions


In a battle against NCDs

In Bangladesh, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) account for 59% of annual deaths among the 160+ million people of the country. Due to lack of awareness, prevailing culture, and economic means, the importance of health monitoring is largely overlooked, and NCDs often progress to a stage where they become difficult and expensive to treat.

We, at Pulse Health, have created a technological platform that enables people to access and afford health monitoring services, and empowers them to take corrective measures to halt the NCDs from progressing. We want to scale this platform among the mass people.

Our solution is comprised of

1. Periodic health monitoring service using state of the art devices

2. Easy to use mobile application to keep health data stored under individual profile and anytime easy access (cloud enabled)

3. Customised health advice from the paramedic team,

4. Health insurance bundle, empowering the client/beneficiary to avail of further necessary services like doctor visit, hospitalization etc.

We plan to target the rural communities of Bangladesh and start giving monthly service for a free of cost for the period of 12 months, as a pilot experiment. If our soon-to-be launched first project yields success, then it will go round and round throughout the country.

In the process, the communities will gradually find themselves educated about the service- get to know about the condition of their health, develop an understanding about preventive care and realize the benefits of health insurance when someone is sick. Once they realize the benefits first hand, and make a habit of the service and all the learnings that come with it, it will be easier to make the community pay the small fee to avail the service. In the process, the community gets incorporated into a standard preventive healthcare program.

The expected outcome is the identification of health-risks within the target group, creating better awareness around preventive healthcare, and promoting better practices to improve overall health among the target population. We also expect that this will have positive long term benefits also, because of the increased awareness and education around health care and good practices. Other communities are likely to be influenced positively too, making it easier to attract more people to such programs/initiatives. The introduction and popularization of a micro-insurance for healthcare will also have a positive effect, lessening the burden of financial risk if an individual falls sick or needs hospitalization.

It has been observed that pre-existing conditions like hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity increase the risk of negative outcomes from COVID-19. Through periodic testing of individuals it is possible to identify people at higher risk and then try to take them on a corrective path through treatment and other measures. The health insurance also gives them additional support and coverage for doctor visits or hospitalizations.