Connecting Women to Improve Health Outcomes

Health-tech startup Sehat Kahani joins Business Call to Action by utilizing sustainable IT solutions to link women health providers with underserved communities

Karachi, Pakistan, 29 September 2017 – Sehat Kahani, a health-tech platform, has joined Business Call to Action (BCtA) with a pledge to empower 10,000 women healthcare providers to integrate tele-health services into their medical practices by 2020 in order to reach women patients in underserved communities. By the same year, the company aims to deploy 100 E-Health Centres(including E-Hubs and E-Spokes) nationwide, providing marginalized communities with access to high-quality health care.

Launched in 2008, BCtA aims to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by challenging companies to develop inclusive business models that engage people with less than USD 8 per day in purchasing power as consumers, producers, suppliers and distributors. It is supported by several international organizations and hosted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Although it is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, Pakistan still struggles with basic healthcare. Of the 40 million Pakistanis living below the poverty line, according to ADB, 30 million live in rural areas and nearly 30 percent lack access to primary care. As a result, more than 80 percent of healthcare expenditures are made out of pocket. Millions of impoverished Pakistani women rely on untrained birth attendants and faith healers, contributing to a national maternal mortality index of 149 – the 3rd highest worldwide.

According to WHO 2015, Pakistan Produces 150,000 doctors ever year. Even though 63 percent of medical students are female, only 23 percent of registered doctors are women according to 2014-2015 Pakistan Medical and Dental Council. While nearly half of Pakistan’s trained doctors are women, 50 percent of them never enter employment after receiving their medical degrees. A UN study in one province showed that only 246 women doctors were available to meet the healthcare needs of 22.2 million people.

According to Sehat Kahani CEO Dr. Sara Saeed Khurrum, “Visiting a healthcare practitioner is still considered a taboo many impoverished areas. But with the rapid growth of E-health, we can put telemedicine solutions into women doctors’ hands to reach those most in need – and in the process surmount the barriers that women doctors face in their careers.”

While its aim is to reach low-income communities, Sehat Kahani is also putting women doctors to work: just as social norms pose barriers to impoverished women seeing doctors, cultural barriers limit women doctors’ ability to practice. By leveraging mobile health and tele-health technologies, the company is enabling women doctors to initiate home-based practices, bringing them back into the workforce in order to provide quality care in remote communities.

Kahani’s inclusive business model is based on ICT-enabled health centres – called E-Hubs and E-Spokes – equipped to connect with home-based women doctors via telemedicine software. Patient histories are recorded on a cloud-based electronic system as doctors and patients communicate via live tele-consultations. E-prescriptions, lab collection points, weekly ultrasound visits and tertiary care referrals are also provided at the hubs.

BCtA Programme Manager Paula Pelaez noted that, “Less than 30 percent of women residing in rural Pakistan have access to basic health services. This lack of women’s health care contributes to high infant mortality and childhood illness. However, inclusive models like Sehat Kahani are making the most of IT innovations in order to change the face of healthcare in low-income communities.”

The company currently executes a portfolio of 14 telemedicine clinics spread across 3 provinces of Pakistan (Sindh, Punjab, KPK and Karachi) which has served to more than 440,000 patients directly and indirectly through its digital health care services. And as part of its BCtA commitment, it is seeking to impact 6 million lives by 2020 targeted through the Sehat Kahani Service Portal, which will focus on primary health care along with water, sanitation and hygiene, and nutrition information to bridge the health inequality gap.

For further information:
BCtA: Aimee Brown at aimee.brown@undp.org
Sehat Kahani: Makkiya Jawed at makkiyajawed@sehatkahani.com

BctA membership does not constitute a partnership with its funding and programme partners, UNDP or any UN agency.

About Business Call to Action (BCtA): Launched at the United Nations in 2008, BCtA aims to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by challenging companies to develop inclusive business models that offer the potential for both commercial success and development impact. BCtA is a unique multilateral alliance between key donor governments including the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, UK Department for International Development, US Agency for International Development, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Finland, and the United Nations Development Programme – which hosts the secretariat. For more information, please visit www.businesscalltoaction.org or on Twitter at @BCtAInitiative.

About Sehat Kahani: Sehat Kahani is a tele-health Platform that connects at home-out of work force female doctors to underserved patients in low and middle income markets providing access to quality health care: 1) Access - By using trusted intermediaries in the communities and dormant health infrastructure, we create Sehat Kahani E- Health Hubs where a front line worker is trained via a 5 step training on medical knowledge, leadership and soft skills to connects patients in these Hubs to qualified home based female physicians and skills specialists using video consultation and Electronic Medical Records systems. 2) Prevention - Sehat Kahani through its preventive health care portfolio creates innovative preventive health care messaging activities in target communities to bring out a long term change in behaviours and health patterns, barriers. 3) Efficiency - Through our specialized telehealth platform we have designed digital health solutions to reduce the disease load of tertiary care hospitals by treating primary and secondary diseases via virtual home base female doctors part of Sehat Kahani network in less than 3 clicks. For more information about Sehat and its inclusive portfolio of services, visit www.sehatkahani.com/ OR www.facebook.com/SehatKahaniOfficial