When your yearly check-up rolls around, you go to your local clinic and get the typical tests — vital signs, glucose, cholesterol, body mass calculations, and any other blood tests needed. When you’re finished, you receive a printout of your test readings, and you leave. In total, this process takes about 10 minutes (after waiting around in the waiting room), but now in India, a machine can perform these tasks for you.
Dubbed as a “medical ATM,” the new system is capable of taking most of your primary care readings and can connect you with a doctor over video chat for further consultation. Most importantly, it’s lending a helping hand to more rural areas in India where full-time doctors are rare.
YOLO Health’s team, along with one of their ATMs. Image source: YOLO Health.
Developed by YOLO Health, the company began using its ATM system about eight months ago and has 17 machines in circulation. As of last year, India had one doctor for every 11,528 people in government hospitals, and while the number of doctors in the country is on the rise, it’s not increasing quick enough to care for everyone in need.
Conditions such as hypertension and diabetes that require close monitoring from a physician are also on the rise. The type of monitoring required typically involves looking at blood readings and other similar preventative measures, which is exactly the kind of care co-founders Dhilly Babu, Shreyans Gandhi, and Arpit Mishra believe can be outsourced to the ATM.
To begin testing, a patient sitting at the ATM will be walked through the specific tests and services it offers. To help out, especially in rural areas where residents speak a dialect, an attendant sits nearby to answer a patient’s questions or to help with tasks, such as putting on the ATM’s blood pressure cuff correctly. The helper doesn’t have to be a trained medical professional — he or she just needs to speak the local language.
The ATM’s services can function over a slow 2G or 3G connection, as locating data service in remote parts of the country is difficult. According to Dhilly, the team also operates an offline model for locations with no or poor connectivity.
To get a glimpse of the medical ATM in action, watch the video below.
About 6,000 patients have used the 17 ATMs in the past six months. Currently YOLO Health is trying to partner with more hospitals as well as India’s government to improve coverage. It’s also running a pilot in Delhi to try out the ATMs in places such as city centers and supermarkets.
When it comes to cost, patients using the ATM pay per test and consultation, but a basic health screening is free. For an advanced health screening, a patient can pay $2.25. A doctor consultation costs $3.75, while a specialist consultation is $5.25. Additional tests, such as for a heart screening or diabetes check-up, cost about the same.
Source: Tech in Asia
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