iHEAL

iHEAL is an acronym for Innovative Health Equity and Affordability for All. It is a nonprofit humanitarian organization that seeks to introduce remote telehealth solutions to the Health system in Jordan moving past Covid-19. 

Dr. Dhyalddin Sarairah is the executive director of iHEAL.  

iHEAL wants to solve the problem of affordable and efficient healthcare services for the refugee camps in Jordan and the local noninsured and under served areas, especially post COVID-19. 

There are 121,512 Syrian refugees who lack access to secondary and tertiary healthcare services and as a result they are in need of out of camp care. Such referrals put a burden on two groups: First,refugees because of permits, transportation, and high cost then second the organizations that is responsible to carry out this high cost transfer that might end up with discharge the patient back to the camp . Not to forget that all the latter cause long delays for many referred cases who are in urgent need. More importantly, out of camps referrals are not practical solutions during disease outbreaks and pandemics. 

The solution is to bring virtual care to patients and build a strong and secure database with all refugees health records. Patients will have doctors who can monitor their status anytime, anywhere. 

The main target group in the initial phase as proof of concept for iHEAL are the refugees in the camps. Zaatari Camp hosts 79,030 refugees. Whereas 42,482 refugees are in Azraq Camp.

For both refugee camps, our main target is working on the referrals for out of camp care.  Referral rate for Zaatari is (1,000/month) is 4.6%. For the first of half of 2020, there were 2,238 referred cases. As for the referral rate for Azraq, it is 5.3%. And for the first quarter of 2020, there were 905 referred cases outside the camp. Most cases are referred due to lack of services inside the camp and need serious treatment, tests, and examinations. 

iHeal will follow a care strategy known as Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) care strategy, which is simply providing all aspects related to health around the patient from doctors, pharmacists, nutritionists and even psychologists to implement cognitive behavioral therapy remotely.   

Using Technology collecting some behavioral lifestyle and medical data would give more clear picture in order to identify the need and demand for a vulnerable group and respond accordingly, especially when using the PCMH care strategy.

Jordan's Current health expenditures: 10 % of GDP ( 3,58 billion) however, About 45% of the whole Kingdom population are non-insured, which includes refugees and people in the rural areas. 

Providing a low cost high frequency primary health care services for refugees and other vulnerable group with significant customer education in regards their health magnifying the primary care practice thus building a well established infrastructure for secondary and tertiary health services. 

Using a healthcare App will allow us to import cloud data and run some analysis about disease behaviors and prevalence over a short period of time.  

The ultimate impact we aim to achieve is providing access to adequate healthcare services for everyone. But more closely, the main initial target is improving the resilience of the most vulnerable, the refugees and the local underserved and noninsured population. 

In order to reach that, the main activities will focus on camp referrals. Referral rate for Zaatari is (1,000/month) is 4.6%. For the first of half of 2020, there were 2,238 referred cases. As for the referral rate for Azraq, it is 5.3%. And for the first quarter of 2020, there were 905 referred cases outside the camp. Working on the referral pipeline for out of camp care will be by reducing hospital admissions, lowering the cost of medical services, and improving quality and efficiency of services inside the camps and connecting patients to virtual services when needed. The virtual services (clinic, MyCortex app) will keep patients data monitored by doctors for better treatments and diagnosis. It will also keep the patients informed, connected and actively participating in their treatment journey, specially with NCDs. 

Ultimately, the solution will tailor the services around the patient's needs. The patient will be the focal point of the care system. 

The solution we are trying to implement in the refugee camps for the vulnerable populations is going to build a sustainable healthcare system that will upgrade the services in times of quality, efficiency, and cost. Moreover, the solution is innovative and ensures data privacy and security. 

The plan is to provide this solution in the first year for the most at-risk population which are the vulnerable refugees inside the refugee camps, who lack adequate healthcare services and always in need of referrals for out of camp care. Such referrals usually cost time and money because of permits processing to leave the camp. Adding to that the medical risks on the patients. 

The second phase which will start in the next fiscal year targeting the noninsured local population in main cities and rural areas. This target group mostly suffers from poverty and lack of access to healthcare services because they live in underserved areas. 

Third phase which will start in the third fiscal year in collaborations with Ministry of Health Jordan to implement Health Microinsurance scheme using telemedicine to provide medical services accessible for everyone and achieving Sustainable developed Goals Number 3 Good health and wellbeing. 

We decided to to run a study in collaboration with the ministry of health to measure a multiple key indicators that can gives some insight about accessibility availability and retention of users over a 3 month period. 

By conducting a study that aims to find the impact of our solution on refugees health measuring biometric and biochemical data over 3 months period and to compare the results statistically and find if our application helped in improving the overall health of the refugee with chronic disease in addition to measuring their daily activity.

Also conducting a satisfactory survey for both clinician and patient to find about the overall satisfaction, efficacy, and improvement of health from the users perspectives.

iHeal using 3 metrics to evaluate the proof of concept over the next 3 months: Patient and clinician retention, Quality of service and Technology, and referrals for other telehealth or for in-person health facility in order to balance virtual and in person health care. However, multiple key indicators are considered for measuring success when scaling up. 

We are not formally affiliated with or working for any organizations yet.