Transforming global healthcare access with telehealth tech

Half of the people in the world lack access to the most basic healthcare services. Additionally, five billion people lack access to safe, affordable, and timely surgery and anesthesia care. As a result, approximately 8.6 million people in middle- and low-income countries die annually from treatable conditions. 18 million people die from diseases requiring surgery each year. Lack of access to healthcare is a global crisis. 

Before the COVID-19 pandemic transformed our communities, the world already faced a shortfall of more than 7.2 million health workers. Additionally, the brain drain phenomenon further contributes to the disparities in access to proper healthcare. Qualified specialists often migrate from low-resource countries with high needs to areas of increased resources and more significant personal opportunities.

As the COVID-19 pandemic persists, travel bans, increased demands on patient care in hospitals, vaccine hesitancy or lack of access, and other factors limit physicians' abilities to volunteer with humanitarian programs. Unable to support communities in need, patients have gone without medical care or surgeries to restore their health and improve their quality of life.

To expand our global programs, we need a platform that will allow for more automation and more engagement with our medical professionals instead of the manual process currently used to match volunteer physicians to hospitals and clinics in need.

World Telehealth Initiative provides sustainable medical expertise to the world's most vulnerable communities to build local capacity and deliver core health services through a network of volunteer healthcare professionals supported by telehealth technology. We are transforming global healthcare access. 

As a leader in global philanthropic healthcare, World Telehealth Initiative enables a world in which all people have access to quality healthcare. 

World Telehealth Initiative has three goals:

1. Advance the healthcare skills and capacity of providers in vulnerable communities
2. Improve health outcomes for people in underserved communities
3. Increase opportunities for compassionate, skilled healthcare professionals to make a difference for those in need

At the core of all WTI programs is the desire to support the local healthcare providers in the way they requested, to build their healthcare system's capacity to care for more of their community. We believe the host community must be the primary driver of global health engagements. They design the program based on their needs, resources, and capacity, then we implement it - together. We work with hospitals and clinics that want further medical expertise and support. 

We focus on competency-based learning experiences and strong, long-term, bidirectional engagement to create lasting relationships with our partners and volunteers. 

Supporting physicians may engage in four delivery applications:

1. Peer-to-peer didactics
2. Scheduled clinical consultations
3. Surgical mentoring
4. Emergent, high-acuity care

Recognizing that many organizations already work in the global health field, we often collaborate with existing non-governmental organizations to increase our collective impact. World Telehealth Initiative is currently the only NGO providing services in this exact manner with philanthropic telehealth services. The potential to scale is limitless. 

However, to expand our programs and global reach, we need to automate some of our processes. We are building a custom platform that will transform the time-consuming manual matching process into a more automated and engaging approach for our partner hospitals and clinics and our volunteers. 

Much like Airbnb or Uber, the platform will create a network effect. As our user base increases, demand will also increase. We can more efficiently match more physicians to partner sites with a curated view of our services and an organized workflow. 

Suppose a hospital needs a pulmonologist to care for their patients. In that case, they can open our app, search for the available volunteer physicians who meet their needs, and schedule consultations, mentoring, training, and emergent care. 

As a volunteer, the physicians will also be able to search the platform to find clinics and hospitals that require their expertise. If the physician is only available one day a week, speaks the language of the community, or has expertise in pediatric oncology, they can find those opportunities through the platform. Through telehealth, physicians can volunteer time and expertise from the comfort of their home or office or on the go on their phone or tablet. 

The custom-built platform will provide tools for scheduling, instant messaging, recruiting, and vetting qualified partner sites and volunteers. It will allow two users with mutual interests and needs to connect, increasing quality and access to healthcare services worldwide. 

Unlike a traditional non-governmental agency or medical program, we are not bound by the size of a building, the number of patient beds, the ability to afford travel, or the availability of vacation time to volunteer. The flexible nature of WTI's design allows us to adjust to the needs of the community week by week, year by year.

With the platform, we will also be able to scale our services while minimizing the effort to grow. Instead of staff managing the manual process of recruiting, vetting, and matching volunteers with partner sites, the platform will automate much of that process, allowing the team to focus on training and implementing quality, compassionate, culturally sensitive care for patients. 

By building relationships among providers, consistent patient care, and ease of use with automation, WTI can capitalize on the network effect to scale to the global need for healthcare access.

World Telehealth Initiative partners with Teladoc Health, Intel, and other industry leaders to optimize our services. Teladoc Health provides the telehealth technology, data center, and technical support that allows World Telehealth Initiative to provide the devices at no cost to partner hospitals and clinics. 

The Teladoc Health Data Centers provide a fast, reliable, and secure data center where patient information is protected. Building off the existing infrastructure, World Telehealth Initiative's providers and partners can use the most up-to-date technology anywhere with an internet connection. 

We use tools such as React and Ruby on Rails to build the platform. 

React provides the user interface for forms on the front end of the design, allowing for faster development and more reliable performance. It also uses the framework and collection of JavaScript libraries.

Ruby on Rails is used for the back-end design, providing a robust and reliable framework and extensive libraries (gems) for the database and models. Large companies such as Airbnb, Twitter, SecureDocs, and ProCore use Ruby on Rails for their platform design, exemplifying the possible scope and scale. 

In addition, World Telehealth Initiative uses CSS, HTML, MySQL/PostgreSQL, and Azure cloud running Linux OS. 

Once World Telehealth Initiative's platform is live, we can expand our programs to reach more people, save more lives, and strengthen the healthcare systems in vulnerable communities worldwide.

World Telehealth Initiative focuses on providing resources for the most vulnerable communities worldwide. In 2022, this includes the refugees in Bangladesh, women and children fleeing the conflict in Ukraine, and thousands of people across the Global South who lack access to physicians, surgeons, and dentists. 

Our volunteers represent over 50 specialties, including pediatrics, trauma, neurology, cardiology, pulmonology, endocrinology, and oncology. Many of our volunteers can provide care for their countries of origin. 

For example, an Ethiopian physician who currently works in Texas can deliver telehealth neurology services for hospitals in Ethiopia. Not only does he have the expertise they need, but he also appreciates the cultural nuances and can speak Amharic, the working language of Ethiopia. 

Telehealth technology can also support hospitals when transporting patients is impossible. For instance, in Argentina, a fragile premature baby cannot be transferred 300 miles to the nearest neonatal intensive care unit. Instead, a neonatologist can beam into the hospital from their laptop, connecting to the telehealth device at the remote hospital. The neonatologist can speak with the on-site physician and parents, view the baby's vitals, and review laboratory tests and scans. The neonatologist can hear the baby's heartbeat and respirations with a peripheral device, such as a stethoscope - from 300 miles away. The specialist is also available at a moment's notice, eliminating the need to travel during a crisis, expediting the ability of the team to create a plan of care and stabilize the patient. 

Telehealth addresses and achieves the basic tenants of Healthcare Reform: providing the population access to improved and convenient, high-quality, patient-centric care, enhancing outcomes while reducing per capita expenditures. Telehealth is reshaping the landscape of healthcare delivery across the globe. Studies have shown that the benefits of telehealth include significantly improved outcomes, efficient care delivery, and reduction in mortality rates, hospitalizations, length of stay, readmissions, and healthcare costs. 

World Telehealth Initiative was established in 2017 by Dr. Yulun Wang and Sharon Allen. Dr. Wang founded InTouch Health, where he developed and deployed the state-of-the-art global cloud-based telehealth network. With the rapid adoption of telehealth in the United States and other high-income countries to deliver more accessible, lower-cost and higher quality healthcare, Dr. Wang became increasingly aware of the need for this modern technology to be deployed in under-resourced communities.  

Sharon Allen worked extensively with organizations in low- and middle-income countries to understand the needs of low-resourced clinics and hospitals worldwide. Under her leadership, WTI developed an innovative philanthropic healthcare model that leverages remote volunteer physicians to provide sustainable medical expertise via telehealth. 

The core of our program design focuses on pairing philanthropic physicians directly with the clinicians and patients in need - as defined by the healthcare professionals working in the hospitals. We listen to the needs of each project site, adjusting the specialties, availability, and resources to best meet the goals and needs of the hospital and its patients. No two WTI programs are precisely the same. 

Virtual care and telehealth offer an opportunity to provide a cost-effective solution that ensures patients receive medical services where and when they are needed most. WTI's method significantly improves global healthcare at scale and a fraction of the typical cost. 

Non-profit organizations worldwide address the problem of healthcare inequities, delivering medical supplies or deploying medical experts to serve on a short-term basis in the community. WTI's model of providing telehealth resources to vulnerable communities is unique, cost-effective, and scalable.

The custom-built platform rollout will occur in three phases as part of our strategic plan to increase our global reach. During Phase One, the staff will transition our current database to the new platform and familiarize themselves with it. In Phase Two, volunteer physicians will begin using the platform during the registration and vetting process, building our network of available volunteers. Finally, in Phase Three, the platform will be implemented with our partner sites, allowing the hospitals and clinics to find the specialists they need to meet the needs of their patients in a responsive, customized way. 

Our vision for World Telehealth Initiative is to connect thousands of volunteer physicians with tens of thousands of patients worldwide while simultaneously strengthening the community's healthcare system.

As a relatively young non-governmental agency, World Telehealth Initiative has grown significantly since its launch in 2017. From the organization's founding with Dr. Wang and Sharon Allen, we have grown to eight staff, representing programs, marketing & communications, technology, and development. But there is still much to be done to reach the millions of people worldwide who lack access to essential health services and specialized care. 

Being selected as a participant in this program will provide the financial resources needed to develop and launch the custom-built platform that will allow us to scale and strengthen our programs. And it will also connect us with experts in technology, monitoring and evaluation, and strategy. We are confident that our program design works because we have seen the impact on thousands of patients and hundreds of healthcare providers worldwide. Mothers and babies are alive after difficult labor and deliveries. Children with cancer have the medical care they need. Men with strokes are being identified accurately and treated for the condition in their local hospitals.

Sharing our impact with the world requires more than heartwarming stories and photos from the field. Our monitoring & evaluation and impact processes need refining. Connecting with experts through the MIT program and engaging in mentoring program will strengthen our ability to transform global healthcare. 

World Telehealth Initiative is a part of the solution to provide accessible healthcare to people worldwide. And yet, we are unknown to many. Building our brand and sharing our impact through media and conferences would also help us develop collaborative relationships with corporations, non-governmental organizations, and community leaders. Every human has a right to healthcare, and a life lived in dignity. Together, we can make that right a reality for thousands of people worldwide.

World Telehealth Initiative is the only philanthropic organization providing telehealth services in this exact manner. The custom-built platform will allow us to scale, reach more patients in need, and connect more volunteer physicians to hospitals and clinics. We cannot grow to meet the global demand under our current processes. Yet, the need for accessible healthcare grows by the day. 

The platform will transition WTI from a manual process to a more automated system. It will allow for more agile responses to the needs, as exemplified by the quickly growing crisis in Eastern Europe. A quarter of the population was displaced in Ukraine or to neighboring countries in a month. Hospitals were destroyed. Thousands have been injured and killed during the conflict. Timely and effective medical care is crucial during such devastation.

When poverty, conflicts, or natural disasters disrupt daily life in communities, World Telehealth Initiative can use our network to deploy devices, connect specialists, and promptly respond to needs. For instance, the HOPE Foundation hospitals in Bangladesh provide care for refugees, women & children, and people living in communities with limited access to healthcare.

Today, telehealth is one of the fastest-growing sectors in healthcare, especially during COVID-19, which has enhanced and accelerated the role that telehealth plays within healthcare. World Telehealth Initiative wants to bring telehealth technology to vulnerable communities, increase healthcare access, improve quality of life, and strengthen health systems worldwide.

In the following year, World Telehealth Initiative aims to transform global healthcare by expanding from 24 to 40 total program sites. 

WTI will add 650 new volunteer physicians to our community to support the new program sites, providing over 50 medical specialties to clinics and hospitals worldwide. With over 1,000 volunteers by year-end, we can bring life-changing healthcare to thousands more people in vulnerable communities.

The launch of our custom-built platform will facilitate the recruiting and onboarding of new volunteers and program sites in a more efficient, accessible manner. The increased capacity is crucial to our ability to scale our programs. 

In the next five years, we anticipate that the platform will be available through a phone-based app, allowing program sites to reach out to physicians "on-demand" and volunteers to join calls from anywhere. 

The accessible nature of the matching platform will allow us to respond to crises more efficiently and provide emergent care more readily. Much like a hospital has on-call physicians, WTI will be able to offer the same level of responsiveness from a global community of volunteers.

The network effect will facilitate growth as more program sites experience successful support and more volunteers experience the benefit of connecting with hospitals and clinics through telehealth, reducing cost, travel, and time off work. 

Telehealth is reshaping the landscape of healthcare delivery across the globe. Studies have shown that the benefits of telehealth include significantly improved outcomes, efficient care delivery, and a reduction in mortality rates, hospitalizations, length of stay, readmissions, and healthcare costs.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are a guiding force in World Telehealth Initiative's programs. Not only does WTI address SDG 3: Good Health & Well-Being, but our approach also touches on other pillars in the SDG initiatives. 

For example, physicians and hospital staff can use telehealth technology to connect. It reduces costs, delays in care, and the environmental impact of hundreds of physicians flying or driving to the program sites (SDG 10 & 13). 

Educational and mentoring opportunities strengthen the skill sets and knowledge base of healthcare professionals who work in low-resourced clinics and hospitals. By equipping people who are working in the community instead of relying on foreign specialists to offer support during short-term trips, WTI supports quality education (SDG 4), improves productive employment (SDG 8), and reduces inequalities in healthcare and educational resources (SDG 10). 

Currently, WTI tracks the number of volunteers, their specialties, the number of telehealth sessions they provide (in hours), and the program sites. With the launch of the custom-built platform, we will have the ability to track more qualitative and quantitative metrics, such as the number of patients treated, the hours of mentoring and training provided, and other aspects involved in our programs. 

World Telehealth Initiative acknowledges that our current metrics are limited. Yet, we are actively working to strengthen and expand our impact metrics to share progress towards our short- and long-term goals more accurately.

World Telehealth Initiative provides sustainable medical expertise to the world's most vulnerable communities to build local capacity and deliver core health services through a network of volunteer health care professionals supported with state-of-the-art telehealth technology.

We aim to revolutionize global healthcare by providing quality medical expertise where and when it is needed. We can improve the health and well-being of patients in these vulnerable communities and simultaneously provide training for on-site clinicians. 

WTI provides telehealth technology and connects volunteer physicians with hospital and clinic sites that need the expertise of medical specialists. Through collaborative patient consultations and emergent care, physicians work together to identify the patient's health conditions and then create a plan of care to address the patient's needs.

In addition, volunteer physicians provide peer-to-peer didactics and mentoring for healthcare professionals working in the hospital and clinic program sites. Strengthening the skills and tools of the professionals allows them to treat current and future patients better. Staffed with a growing base of philanthropic health workers and powered by donated telehealth technology from Teladoc Health, World Telehealth Initiative efficiently bridges patients to providers virtually, overcoming geographic and cost constraints.

World Telehealth Initiative collaborates with and holistically supports our host program site partners, addressing both the current need for medical/surgical intervention and increasing future capacity by working to strengthen the local healthcare delivery infrastructure.

Our partnership with Freedom from Fistula Foundation in Lilongwe, Malawi, illustrates our impact to transform healthcare access in a community with access to virtual care assistance. Obstetric fistulas occur during prolonged, obstructed births, and women are often left incontinent, creating a highly stigmatized and dangerous medical condition. In nations with convenient access to clinical assistance, fistulas are rare as routine procedures, such as a Cesarean section, would erase these complications. Tragically, fistulas are still prevalent in underdeveloped regions, affecting more than two million women who lack access to appropriate medical expertise and services.  

One of the hundreds of women treated in Malawi's clinic was Esperanza, a 19-year-old pregnant mother who had to travel six hours while in labor on the back of a bicycle to reach a clinic. After days of prolonged, obstructed labor, Esperanza suffered a stillbirth and incurred a fistula.  

Women suffering from fistula complications often become socially ostracized. If it were not for WTI partnering with the local clinic to enable surgical consults via telemedicine, Esperanza's fate would have been similar. Fortunately, telehealth allowed Esperanza to recover and avoid becoming one of the millions of women who have suffered from untreated fistulas for years or even decades. 

World Telehealth Initiative depends on technology to increase healthcare access worldwide. 

WTI uses a cloud-based telehealth system to connect volunteer physicians with clinics and hospitals that have our telehealth devices on site. 

Physicians use peripheral devices such as stethoscopes connected to the telehealth device to assess and treat patients accurately - from 100 or 1,000 miles away. 

Teladoc Health's InTouch Lite V3 telehealth device has a microphone, speaker, camera with 26x zoom, video, and wireless network capabilities. 

Teladoc Health data center, security system, and technical support teams support our telehealth devices stationed at hospitals and clinics worldwide. 

Volunteer physicians connect via computer, tablet, or phone to offer healthcare professionals and their patients' on-demand support. 

The custom-built platform currently in development uses industry proven secure and scalable programming tools: Ruby on Rails is used for the server side back-end (data storage, matching logic, etc.) and React for the front-end UI/UX (input forms, custom controls, etc.).

All the technology works in concert to connect medical professionals to provide safe, timely, and effective healthcare to people when and where they need it most.

World Telehealth Initiative is committed to providing an environment free of harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and disrespectful or other unprofessional conduct based on: 

• Race 
• Religion (including religious dress and grooming practices) 
• Color 
• Sex/gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, or related medical conditions), sex stereotype, gender identity/gender expression/transgender (including whether or not you are transitioning or have transitioned), and sexual orientation 
• National origin (including language use restrictions) 
• Ancestry 
• Physical or mental disability 
• Medical condition 
• Genetic information/characteristics 
• Marital status/registered domestic partner status 
• Age (40 and over) 
• Sexual orientation 
• Military or veteran status 
• Any other basis protected by federal, state, or local law or ordinance or regulation 

World Telehealth Initiative also prohibits discrimination, harassment, disrespectful or unprofessional conduct based on the perception that anyone has any of those characteristics or is associated with a person who has or is perceived as having any of those characteristics. 

In addition, the WTI prohibits retaliation against individuals who raise complaints of discrimination or harassment or who participate in workplace investigations. 

World Telehealth Initiative relies on the expertise of our program site leaders and our volunteer physicians to give voice to the needs and goals of each community where we deploy telehealth devices. The flexible nature of our program design within the guideposts of our mission allows us to adjust to the unique cultural and societal influences that impact healthcare. 

Non-profit organizations around the world address the problem of healthcare inequities. Some organizations deliver medical supplies to these geographic locations of need; other organizations coordinate and fund health care experts to travel for periods of philanthropic work. 

The unfilled chasm left by these solutions are:

1. medical supplies that only solve part of the problem since local clinicians often are untrained in using these supplies effectively
2. traveling healthcare experts incur high trip costs and offer limited stays, which do not create sustainable improvements in the communities   
3. well-intentioned medical mission groups may disrupt the local healthcare system rather than support it
4. lower-grade technology may not have appropriate security and may be unreliable

Virtual care and telehealth technology offer an opportunity to provide a cost-effective solution that ensures patients receive medical services where and when they are needed most. 

World Telehealth Initiative's method of humanitarian healthcare — pairing philanthropic physicians directly with clinicians and patients in need — can significantly improve global healthcare for the underprivileged at scale and a fraction of the typical cost.

We are the only NGO providing services in this exact manner, and the potential to scale is limitless.

WTI addresses this global crisis through a partnership model, customized and unique to each health system and community with which we work. The model includes analysis in preparation for the device's arrival, followed by ongoing support, local development, and evaluation to support future national efforts. 

Our model is accomplished by:

1. identifying and qualifying clinics/hospitals in underprivileged communities
2. registering and training on-site clinicians
3. recruiting, registering, and training supporting volunteer physicians
4. algorithmically matching on-site needs with appropriate medical expertise from supporting physicians & facilitating those relationships 
5. scheduling, managing, and growing the programs based on the expressed needs of each program site

WTI is fortunate to partner with Teladoc Health. Using Teladoc Health's telehealth devices and network enables the delivery of healthcare expertise anywhere in the world with an internet connection. 

World Telehealth Initiative works with healthcare professionals who donate their time and clinical expertise to provide quality healthcare services to underserved communities.

The physicians offer a wide range of specialties such as Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, OB/ GYN, Infectious Disease, Critical Care, Neurology, Surgery, Dentistry, and many others.

Working together with in-country physicians provides volunteers with the unique opportunity to learn from each other and share the diverse perspectives they have developed while practicing medicine in vastly different parts of the world. 

A global telehealth system allows WTI doctors to volunteer in minimal increments of time from their office or home. This access dramatically increases the number of professionals who can contribute, offering a scalable and sustainable alternative to medical missions.

Many organizations already work in global health, and we often collaborate with existing NGOs to increase our collective impact.

We work with established leaders and emerging innovators to help identify needs and opportunities and provide logistical expertise for shipping, medical education, humanitarian healthcare, government relations, and more. These partnerships maximize impact toward our shared goals.

World Telehealth Initiative is transforming global healthcare. In collaboration with the MIT community, we can create a future that ensures access to quality healthcare for all. 

World Telehealth Initiative works in partnership with corporations, foundations, and individuals to fund the crucial efforts of providing accessible healthcare worldwide. In 2022, we are expanding our base of support to include more family and funding foundations and investigating National Institute of Health grant opportunities. 

In addition to the in-kind, financial, and technical support of Teladoc Health, WTI collaborates with other industry leaders from the technology, healthcare, and international development sectors. 

Adding the MIT community to our network of supports will further enrich our ability to bring accessible healthcare resources to communities around the world.

World Telehealth Initiative recognizes operating a non-profit organization requires a multi-pronged approach to build relationships and raise funds to run successful and long-term programs. 

WTI is fortunate to partner with Teladoc Health. Using Teladoc Health telehealth devices and network enables the delivery of healthcare expertise anywhere in the world with an internet connection. The in-kind donations from Teladoc Health represent approximately $425,000 in value. 

The physicians who volunteer their time and expertise with our partner sites represent approximately $450,000 in professional time. 

Corporate partners have also invested cash in WTI's programs, totaling $200,000 thus far in 2022. Additional cash funds are donated through funding foundations, donor-advised funds, and individual donors. Our goal is to build our funding each month across all sectors, to have a healthy base to expand our reach and increase healthcare access worldwide.