Innovation

Products:

1. Caremother:

 Positive Pregnancy experience

 Pre-natal and post-natal care

 Assembled by the team

 8 to 10 tests can be done within 10 minutes

 Health workers are trained to use the kit

 Inbuilt algorithms in app to derive results based on the tests- quick notification to nearby doctors about high risk mothers'

2. fetosense- Fetal heart rate monitoring device :

 20-40 min test

 Used in 3rd trimester by mothers

 Follows a B2B2C model

 Positive experience spreading awareness

 To be parents and family members become more cautious about health and fitness for the baby after experiencing the fetus heartbeat

 Helps doctors understand the status of the fetus and judge whether the mother will have a normal or a c-section delivery

Inspiration

Co-founders of CareNX got inspiration while working for a Mumbai-based NGO, S4S (Science for Society), where they saw a colleague suffer a miscarriage due to lack of awareness and timely medical intervention. Aditya Kulkarni and his friend Shantanu Pathak decided to make use of their background in engineering to help pregnant women in dire situation.

Overall impact

CareNX is just three and half year old but has already reached 30,000 mothers at their doorsteps across 10 states in India. They are 300 health workers using CareMother kit which are working with government and NGOs. Currently, they are operating with 9 NGO bodies and 4 government bodies and have covered more than 500 villages. This has been made due to government organization and health associated NGO’s are showing great interest in this project. Recently Chhattisgarh State distributed 5 million smartphones, all having MotherCare app Installed in them.

 Reached around 30,000 mothers across 10 states and 1000 villages

 Working with 4 gov bodies – BMC & MCGM, Palghar Zilla parishad and Chhattisgarh gov

 Trained more than 500 health workers (government + NGO) for smooth operation

Future avenues:

 In talks with Maharashtra and other state gov which will impact around 3-5 lakh mothers

 Public + Private partnership with gov of Nagaland along with HCL foundation to impact 10 thousand mothers

 Increase the reach and accessibility of CareNx products to rural India

Business benefit

CareNx is a private for-profit organization which is interest in only that much of profit which helps them keep the organization operating. The sole purpose of CareNX is community services. They have their technology partners and investors like Grand Challenges Canada, Cisco etc. which provided all technical and financial support to help business running. Further, they have collaboration with some NGOs which are implementing partners and help CareNX to reach pregnant mothers across the country. These NGOs are also a customer of CareNX which are using CareMother Kit to providing health services in their operating area. Care NX also provide a training program to train health workers in efficiently operating devices. Third partners are government health bodies are finding this idea extremely helping in meeting their objective of providing maternal health care services in rural areas. Data generated through these devices is extremely valuable for government bodies to keep a track record of the health status of the population. A Web application portal has been developed which can be customized according to need to and used as a dashboard for online monitoring and tracking of health records.

CareNX is also encouraging doctors and medical practitioner to buy these portable devices and use them on rental bases.

 Works with both Private and Public setting

 Private: Partners with NGOs, health workers and professionals

 Public: ANM workers carry kit on ANC checkup days

 CSR funding for projects with NGO as implementing partners

 AI and ML used to develop algorithms to identify high risk mothers. Doctors use the mobile or web portal to prioritize visits to high risk to be mothers

 Special training for healthcare workers on app and how to use the kit

 Track and plan visits – helps the companies funding via CSR to get an idea about the impact the initiative is creating

Social and environmental benefit

CareNx currently has two products which are helping them drive change in society.

 Increased awareness among to be parents to have healthy baby

 Intervention for Administrative heads like tehsildars via dashboards and reports- they can get a report of there are as to how many pregnant women need care, how many are anemic or how many are at high risk

 Awareness about the complications involved in high-risk pregnancies and how these could be resolved with regular checkups and proper medical assistance

 Healthy babies being delivered by mothers

 More care given to mothers in need

 In metro cities where women don’t have time to go and visit doctors for checkup the kits are a boon

 Hasslefree and timesaving way to help mothers understand their and the babies health

Interview

ANJANA DONAKONDA, Ms