The challenge
Feedback Medical’s partnership with the HEAL Foundation in India has helped facilitate smoother digital pathways to improve oversight and coordination of the Foundation’s community tuberculosis (TB) screening project in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, under a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative.
The HEAL Foundation is a non-governmental organisation operating in India that acts as an intermediary receiving funds from donor organisations in the healthcare industry as part of their CSR projects. It supports the Indian government’s goal of eradicating tuberculosis (TB) by providing project management and on-the-ground delivery of TB screening programmes.
The Foundation was looking for ways to improve its oversight of these large TB screening programmes and identified the need for a digital solution that could improve the coordination and collaboration of the TB programme office. It needed a ‘digital bridge’ to transfer images more rapidly between portable X-ray devices deployed in the heart of the community to cloud-based AI servers, labs, hospitals and the programme office.
Solution
Working as the technology partner for the HEAL Foundation, Bleepa® is deployed linking the portable X-ray device in a mobile health van to the cloud-based AI screening tool supplied by 5C Network – a technology company applying AI to medical imaging. Bleepa® facilitates smoother X-ray and AI based screening to patients as part of active TB case finding in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. The CSR initiative is funded by Viatris, a global pharmaceutical company.
Once the X-ray is completed, our Feedback Connect software acquires the image directly from the X-ray imaging software and sends it to the Bleepa® cloud. Here it is anonymised for data privacy before sending it to 5C Network’s AI tool, which processes and interprets the images and sends a structured report back to the Bleepa® app.
Both the images and reports are accessible in Bleepa® to the team from multiple locations around which they can easily communicate and can refer X-ray positive patients to labs for follow up tests. Auto reports and notifications are sent by Bleepa® which helps the HEAL programme office to review, track and monitor the TB screening programme remotely.
Conclusion
Bleepa® removes the barrier of digital connectivity, linking to any third-party AI server and X-ray imaging software, creating the digital bridge bringing all stakeholders together for a real-time view, greater oversight and collaboration. To date 3,384 patients test results have gone through Bleepa® and of those 749 have tested positive for TB.
With Feedback’s field-based diagnostic and pathway capabilities and HEAL Foundation’s pioneering, on-the ground approach, the collective aim is to deliver community-based TB screening projects, funded initially by third-party donors, to support the Indian government’s goal of eradicating TB.
The focus is to bring a 21st century screening service to every community in India, even to the most remote of communities, by developing and driving a digital model that is able to scale at pace and build the case for increasing the role of technology to deliver TB screening in India, which has a population of over one billion.
“We are delighted that our partnership with Feedback Medical as our technology partner has reached this significant milestone for our community TB screening programme in Gorakhpur. Its Bleepa® technology gives us a real-time view of AI screened X-ray results of TB positive patients so that we can take prompt follow-up action in a patient’s care pathway. In addition, Bleepa® enables us to manage and deliver programme oversight remotely, providing greater support in harder-to-reach communities.”