Indian Startup App Assists in Tuberculosis Treatment

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that India takes up a fifth of the TB incident cases all over the world, with almost 2 million Indians diagnosed with the illness every year, and approximately 330,000 individuals in India dying from the disease every year.

An Indian developer, Prabhjot Bakshi, together with fellow developer Sanket Shah, decided to develop a technological solution to this nationwide problem when Prabhjot’s wife, who worked in a Punjab-based center for the treatment of Tuberculosis, shared the problems they have with their current patient treatment monitoring system, and expressed her desire for system changes to allow more lives to be saved.

The result was the development of the Tablet Observed Treatment System (TOTS). The system helps TB patients in handling their records and calendars, as well as in mapping routes to the nearest centers where they can take treatment.

Created using the Windows Azure cloud platform, TB patients are given reminders on when they should take their medicine. TOTS include a patient photo reporting system, a system which has been proven to be more dependable than field reports. What happens is that patients take photos of themselves while taking their medicines that, in turn, will be sent to their doctors including a Supervising TB officer or a District TB officer, who can verify that their patients are adhering to their treatment plans. The photos may also be sent to patients’ families. The tuberculosis treatment app allows doctors to store the data over the cloud to facilitate better evaluation of the progress of patients’ sickness and their lab reports.

The app for the treatment of Tuberculosis also makes use of BingMap service to assist patients in finding the nearest Tuberculosis treatment center to ensure that patients get the immediate help and treatment they need.

Continue reading the article here: Tech View in Asia