Integrated care platform is basically care that is planned with people who work together to understand the service user and coordinate and deliver services to achieve the best outcomes of primary care like general practice, community pharmacy, dental, and optometry services. 

Dr. Abhinav Mohanty, Business Development Manager, Avegen, is a dentist but currently, he is into Corporate Health & Wellness and also is a Digital Health Enthusiast. 

Avegen is a health-tech startup providing solutions that transform out-of-hospital specialist care by using technology and healthcare expertise to develop solutions that ensure people get the care they need along the entire care pathway.  

Avegen - an integrated care platform 

Dr. Abhinav explains how Avegen supports the patients and doctors in providing personalized, evidence-based care, “Avegen is a social business generating revenue in Europe and working with NGOs and communities to also make quality healthcare available to the population we work with. At Avegen, we believe in empowering individuals to take better care of their health. At the same time, we strive to support healthcare providers to deliver quality care through technology. Not all diseases can have a one-size-fits-all approach to treatment. Take cardiac rehabilitation, for example, it is a highly personalized and tailor-made process that helps individuals recover to post a cardiac event. Imagine our integrated care platform as a coin with two sides. The first side is a user interface that is used by patients to receive information and guidance depending on the chronic disease solution they are engaged in. The validated information helps in behavior modifications and they are required to input data pertaining to their health status into the app. The other side of the coin is the healthcare provider interface that gives clinicians access to the data being entered by the patient. This helps them in monitoring the data remotely and based on our analytical capabilities we help clinicians visualize the health status of the patients over a period of time. Clinicians can then make decisions and modify their treatment modalities on a patient-to-patient basis. The care provided is focused and personalized which leads to improved health outcomes for patients and gives them access to quality healthcare,” he says.

Digital pregnancy care solution

Dr. Abhinav throws light on the subject of Avegen currently being active in Maternal Healthcare, “Let us begin with our maternal health solution, Together For Her, which we believe is pregnancy care as it should be. The present indicators such as maternal mortality are evidence enough that pregnant women need access to quality care to improve maternal health outcomes. Their health needs regular monitoring and they need continuous support during their pregnancy journey. Information around the right diet, proper physical exercises, and adherence to the care pathway is very crucial to ensure a happy and healthy pregnancy. Our aim has been to ensure that pregnant women receive validated information on their smartphones based on the week of the pregnancy they are in. Gamification such as quizzes has helped in engaging the mothers and also shows their understanding of the content they receive. Healthcare providers have found this digital pregnancy care solution to be an excellent way of keeping their patients engaged, being able to solve queries, and remain connected with their patients even outside their OPDs. Our solution provides personalized care to mothers based on their health risks by providing personalized sessions and in-app content. It drives positive behavior through gamification and the convenience of accessing validated information and it helps healthcare providers track the health status of their patients and monitor their health risks through the integrated care platform. We are also very excited about our latest development which can help providers single outpatients who are at risk of preterm pregnancy with an insight into the specific risk factors involved. We believe this capability can completely transform the care that is provided to pregnant women. Our pregnancy care solution presently lives throughout India via collaborations with private hospitals, trust hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, and NGOs,” he says.

The digital cardiac rehabilitation program

Dr. Abhinav throws light on cardiac healthcare, “While talking about Cardiovascular Diseases, it is very important to understand the role of cardiac rehabilitation post a cardiac event. The present healthcare scenario and out-of-pocket expenditure on healthcare are such that the prevention and treatment costs for cardiovascular diseases are high. In fact, many individuals face a problem in procuring basic preventive medications. Therefore, interventions that are cost-effective are the need-of-the hour and cardiac rehabilitation is one such cost-effective intervention. We have been able to convert physical cardiac rehabilitation into a digital cardiac rehabilitation program that automates physical components of the program while retaining the human touch of clinicians. The recommended care pathway of hospitals can be embedded into our provider platform and the same is replicated onto the patient app. The automated segments include guidance and information on physical activity, stress management, healthy nutrition, and medication review. This is followed by weekly goals for patients and encouraging them to track their health status and provide nudges to patients for better adherence to the care plan. Follow-ups can be scheduled via video calls with the clinician where targets and symptoms are reviewed and the goals for the next week are planned with the patient. This solution not only has shown better health outcomes for patients but has also enabled hospitals to track the patient’s health remotely, reduced readmissions thereby saving costs and has helped hospitals with a reduced workload thereby ensuring better resource allocation within the healthcare center. We are currently working with some hospitals in the NHS Trust in the UK and now looking to scale the solution to other countries as well,” he says.

Jindagi App for HIV care solution

“In HIV, our solution, Jindagi, is deployed in Mumbai with MDACS. The Jindagi App addresses the issue of adherence to the  ART (Antiretroviral Therapy) regime which is an important part of the HIV treatment cascade. PLHIV (People Living with HIV ) who have been recently diagnosed require both counseling and treatment support for them to adapt to lifestyle changes around taking ART medication. The Jindagi app provides a platform to PLHIV on ART regime through the medium of Videos, Infographics, and Quizzes, the app informs, educates, and communicates the importance of maintaining ART medication schedules. It also integrates an OTP and PIN technology to assure confidentiality and personal information safety to the user. The User interface is maintained in Hindi. The App integrates a reward mechanism in the form of points and provides an “Achievement matrix” through gamification. PLHIV individuals get points for watching videos, reading infographics, and answering quizzes correctly. The app aims to reduce the Loss to Follow Up of PLHIV at the ART centers,” says Dr. Abhinav.

The challenging scenario in this new normal

Dr. Abhinav explains, “Calm under pressure is a challenging scenario in this new normal. Mental stress has been taking a toll on many while managing work and personal life and trying to balance it. My mantra in the last 7 months has been time management and time offs. I segregate my work into time slots and try to adhere to decided time slots as much as possible. This helps me complete my tasks within working hours and that leaves me with enough time to manage my personal life as well. Fortunately, I work for an organization that recognizes the need for stress management. While the whole team gives in their maximum to complete client deliverables, the management encourages time off from time to time to break away from the monotonous schedule of work and get recharged. Like some major organizations, we had been provided with an organization-wide long weekend in September. Incentives are in place for employees who plan their leaves in advance and it doesn’t get better than being rewarded to take entitled leaves. Such organization policies really go a long way in ensuring that employees are well relaxed and hence, the performance of employees and, therefore, the organization is maintained at an optimum level,” he says.

Changes in corporate Health & Wellness over a decade

Dr. Abhinav sheds light on being in corporate Health & Wellness for a good amount of time, so how things changed from a decade before to now, “The most interesting shift in corporate health and wellness in the last decade has been the focus on preventive wellness rather than curative wellness. This shift has led to the birth of some organizations whose motto is to keep the working population healthy. It is interesting to see how organizations are now aware of the importance of a healthy workforce. There is a multitude of wellness programs in place that ensures that employees remain healthy and it is no secret that costs incurred on preventive wellness are much less than curative wellness. Most organizations have an annual employee health check-up as a part of their annual wellness calendar. Some organizations also conduct on-site health check-up camps for their employees. Comprehensive health insurance has become the norm. Over the last 2 years, mental stress has started gaining more importance and Employee Assistance Programs consisting of mental health counselors are being adopted by HRs for their employees. Workplace wellness initiatives such as yoga, Zumba, etc. are being frequently included in wellness calendars. Focus has also increased on the health of women employees with pregnancy care programs being implemented for pregnant employees or employees planning for a baby. These programs help the employees cope with their pregnancy journey better with happier outcomes and help in managing postpartum depression and the journey of getting back to work better. Digital solutions like health risk assessments, storing health records, online wellness marketplace, steps challenges, etc. have gained popularity and such solutions are available at the click of a button. The space of corporate health and wellness has completely transformed in a decade and we can expect innovative transformations in the future as well,” he says.

(Edited by Rabia Mistry Mulla)