MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Solution Name:

The Nepal Public Health Directory

One-line solution summary:

Nepal Public Health Directory; it is a platform that aims to provide a real time hospitals and healthcare services information all over the

Pitch your solution.

As a developing country, the utilization of technology is not effectively practice in the public health sector in Nepal as well as there is low availability for the latest technology. There are no such health information platform to collect real-time data on health institutions, available services, and health worker's information in a digital gateway. Therefore, we aim to establish a Nepal Public Health Directory to collect, health institutions; information, available health services in a systematic way to provide real time information to the Nepalese public. This dream platform will collect, analyze and provide information on hospitals, primary healthcare centers, health posts, ambulances, and other vital information such as ventilators, ICU, CCU, beds and contact directory to provide information in a fingertip. Our proposed initiation will provide a convenient mechanism to search and explore the available health services and reduce the information gaps between peoples and healthcare facilities. Our dashboard will also helpful to policymakers for the preparation of evidence-based planning to improve health security and strengthen into the system.

What specific problem are you solving?

Digitalization of health systems, evidence generation and provide real-time
information to the public is a major objective of our work that will definitely
reduce the gap of information sharing between health service provider and
citizens. Secured and latest information is the basic component of the health
system it helps us to generate the data of existing situation to formulate
evidence-based policies.

Medical services is one of the growing sector in Nepal, near about 10,000 public and private health institutions are registered, and approximately 2,50,000 health professionals are currently working all over the country however there is no systematic platforms and information registration mechanism established to track them all. The COVID-19 pandemic provide a great lesson to Nepalese health sector that real-time information on ventilators, ICU, Beds, High-Density Units, contact directory of ambulances, hospitals, and other emergency health services should be available to the general public at basic reach of technology. In the scenario of this global crisis, we believe our digitized platform with health facility and service information will play a crucial role to improve access on health information to the citizen of the nation.

What is your solution?

Nepal Public Health Directory will utilize the website platforms and mobile
application development technology to collect and provide information on health facilities, services, health workers, and essential contact lists for medical and health services. We will have a great dashboard on the website and application, which allows patient to know how long the distance to the hospital from the location of their home. Even they can choose the hospitals and health care according to rating performance of the hospital and expected expenses.

Our concept is to establish a well user-friendly online platform and mobile application to capture the raw information from our 10,000+ health facilities in a participatory approach with local health workers and deliver high-quality digitized health information. This initiation will also help to generate evidence and real scenario for decision-makers, policymakers, health professionals, and general people to make an evidence-based health plan and activities.

Our country is in the implementation phase of the federal system. Evidence generation is our priority. Therefore, in this context, our digitized platform will play a crucial role to collect the evidence, generate meaningful information and transform that to the people who are in need.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

There are many incidents happened in the past and we can’t ignore the fact that they will not happen in the future like a patient died while searching for the oxygen from one hospital to another, like a patient died while searching for the availability of dialysis services in the various hospitals. If they had enough information about the services at a time they would have reached at right place and being alive at this moment.

Therefore, our solution serve to the public of the nations who are in need of health related information. Our platform will provide information on hospitals, primary healthcare centers, health posts, ambulances, and other vital health- related information such as ventilators, ICU, CCU, Beds, and a contact directory to provide information at a fingertip.

This platform will also generate data on health system readiness especially on availability of health services in different health facilities, which helps
policymakers and stakeholders to prepare an evidence-based plan to improve
health systems readiness.

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Prevent the spread of misinformation and inspire individuals to protect themselves and their communities, including through information campaigns and behavioral nudges.

Explain how the problem you are addressing, the solution you have designed, and the population you are serving align with the Challenge.

Nepal is in the process of implementation of the new constitution, focused on the decentralized federal system. The new constitution brings a new frame of the country with provincial and local units as a local administrative government. Therefore, we will work closely with all levels of government and with the Health Ministry to create a digitized information system to collect evidence from the health facilities. This initiation will help to reduce the gaps between health facilities and peoples. Since we are committed in digital platforms all the citizens who have access of website and mobile application will get benefits.

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

Nepal

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Concept: An idea being explored for its feasibility to build a product, service, or business model based on that idea.

Explain why you selected this stage of development for your solution.

At first, we will reach to the every possible health provider of the country by using our internal source as well as technological researchers in this field. Than we will work on collecting information from the various platform of social handles. We do have existing information from the various research too. That will definitely guide us to publish in our platform as well as documentation. After receiving the information from the various resources we will focused on making them accessible to the patient, health worker, researchers and people who are in need. Nepal Public Health Directory is a preliminary idea to utilize the scope of information technology in the public health system in Nepal; we are exploring the opportunities for implementation. Public are well educated to search for the thing they need while getting any service these days and there is no any superior services they’ll need than health services.

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Sagar Paudel, Sagun Paudel