Child mortality is a serious concern for many developing countries. Around, 824,000 children died in India in 2019 alone. Lack of awareness on adequate nourishment and timely vaccines are the prime causes of such deaths. India’s healthcare industry has adopted IT for tackling accessibility and affordability.
But for a long while no innovation to increase awareness on children’s health was created. On the contrary, parents had to rely on paper-based methods to track their child’s growth and vaccine schedules. Then in 2016, India first-ever digital platform for child health was created by Harpreet Singh. Integrated Child Health Record or ICHR is a mobile application that tracks and updates the parents about their child’s vaccination schedule and other growth parameters.
If the child gets their vaccine shot late then ICHR will recalculate the next date and maintain the schedule. It will also maintain all official vaccine certificates in one place. Apart from vaccine reminders, ICHR performs deep analysis of the child’s growth and helps detect the early signs of chronic diseases like obesity and malnutrition.
By using cloud computing, even doctors could tune in and access real-time data of the child. Even researchers and government can access data to understand the health and nourishment of India’s children. This way the government could draft better policies and strategies to address the health of Indian children at large. In 2016, they received $450000 in seed funds.
A child is the greatest treasure of their parents. Parents often stress about their child’s health. They would want something that would elevate their stress. Equipped with this system the parents would be able to fulfil their child’s health by not missing any of the vaccine appointments. Will ICHR’s solution of reminding parents of vaccinations be able to offer Indian children a longer and healthier life?