Medical Application of the Infothela

Medical application of the Infothela is a comprehensive module to improve health standards in rural India. The major objectives are:

• To empower the rural women through information and understanding of health and disease related issues.
• Better, quicker, easily accessible, and cheaper diagnostic facility for treatment and aftercare.
• Improvement of health and hygiene of villages , preventing loss of man-hours due to disease and thereby improving their earning potential.

The entire body of work in this project will be Hindi and is divided into four parts

Part 1. Providing Primary Health Screening At The Doorstep

The diagnostic devices being made available in the village itself will do away with the need to travel to the nearest town/ city (which means a loss of two days). We also expect the tests to cost less. These factors in combination should encourage more people to get tests done, which would definitely lead to improvement in overall health.

The referral for the clinical examination is likely to come from local doctors (both private and Government) and health workers.

Part 2. Introduction to the World of Microbes

This is an educational package designed for the village woman, which will for the first time open up the world of micro-organisms to them. This we are confident will lead to a comprehension of the etiology, epidemiological basis, pathogenesis and pathology of disease and natural/acquired immunity to disease.

• Information in a multimedia format on microorganisms, especially those causing disease.
• Preparing of slides on the spot from samples of sputum, swabs from infected skin conditions, fecal samples, food, soil and water.
• Showing slides of various disease causing microbes.

Part 3. Information

We strongly believe that providing disease and health related information is the first step in improving the health of the people.

• Information on diseases
  • web site www.bimarijankari.org.
  • a multimedia version including simplified text ,visual and aural content.
• Information in a multimedia format on medical specialists.
• Information on the availability of medical facilities, both government and privately owned initially in Kanpur, Kanpur dehat, Unnao, and Lucknow districts.
• Information of the specialist hospitals in Uttar Pradesh.
• Information on commonly used medicines.
• Information of the existing government health programme, like pulse polio.

Part 4. Iconic/voice Based User Interface To Access and Navigate The Disease and Health Information Base.

The icons will be developed with the active participation of the village women themselves.

Project Investigators