The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) has developed an IT tool to monitor and improve the health of Scheduled Caste communities in Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh.
The tool has been developed using open source software and deployed to gather detailed household-level annual, health-related information of the residents of E. Paaguttapalli SC and adjoining hamlets of Pakaja and Pulicherla mandals. It will help assess the impact of medical treatment and provide dietary advice. The tool is expected to benefit around 100 SC families, each with five or six members.
The IIT team has planned to develop a “grameen ayurvedic” mobile app to monitor a person’s health; provide online doctor appointments; maintain patient data in digital form and track a patient’s health status and treatment records.
The aim is to evolve an optimal rural healthcare plan based on treatment efficacy and expenses. A team of doctors led by Hamath Chary and Gnana Prasoonaamba from S.V. College of Ayurveda are visiting the villages every two months and help implement the project.
Earlier, the diet of the residents comprised ragi and other millets, plenty of milk products, fish and other aquatic meat. However, their current diet is dry and poor, devoid of pulses, milk products and meat, resulting in severe anaemia in women and children.
Since the implementation of the project, the symptoms have been alleviated. The institute has been organising live interactions on alternate months with special lectures on improving health. A detailed baseline survey and mapping of health status and expenses using IT tools was undertaken.
“It was intended to address priority health issues through medical treatment and dietary advice and its monitoring using IT tools. A post-intervention survey and mapping of health status and health expenses was also done,” said C. Lakshmana Rao, a professor in the Department of Applied Mechanics at the institute.
