OpASHA has developed a community driven, doorstep delivery model for healthcare that leverages technology alongside human intervention. Communities are empowered by recruiting and training local, semi-literate youth who make door-to door visits, find symptomatics, take them to labs or carry samples, ensure diagnosis by a qualified physician, provide prescribed medicines and intensive counseling. Each activity, its duration/location are monitored with GPS enabled biometric devices. It uses eCompliance Suite - a combination of 4 software applications(detailed below) that are integrated with each other for flow of patient information
eDetection- an algorithm used to screen contacts of existing TB patients and other high-risk individuals.
eCounselling- a series of 9 counselling videos lasting 2-3 minutes each on all aspects of TB such as effect of missed doses, how to handle side effects etc
eCompliance- a fingerprint-based tracking system to ensure adherence to TB treatment. It also generates alerts for missed doses through a built-in SMS reminder system, enabling the CHW to track patients and reduce drop-outs
Electronic Medical Record- compiles data from all softwares and analyzes it. It can produce any type and number of reports at the click of a button, helping project staff to monitor progress.

http://www.opasha.org

• Afghanistan
• Cambodia
• Zambia

• Youth
• Women
• The unemployed
• The poor
• Migrants
• Remote and rural communities
• Adolescent
• Children between 5 and 12
• Children under 5
• Elderly
• Pregnant women

OpASHA is a leading organization in TB control in India and across the world with its footprint in 8 countries across 3 continents. It has treated over 75,000 TB patients so far. All the work is done in collaboration with respective NTP, which provides medicines diagnosis, and physicians. In other words, OpASHA works like the fingers of the Government’s TB Program, which extend into slums and villages, where the Government’s health system cannot reach on its own. For this, OpASHA recruits and employs local semi-literate youth, trains them rigorously, empowers them with technology and pays them performance linked incentives. The technology applications provide up to date, near real time data, which ensures proper and close supervision and achievement of targets. This is the business model of OpASHA, providing a strong foundation for replicability.
OpASHA’s model/technology for TB control has already been replicated in India by GLRA and Jubilant Bhartiya Foundation. Replication has also been done by third parties like Millennium Villages/Earth Institute, Columbia University, APOPO & others in 6 countries. OpASHA’s collaborator, ASPAT in Peru, whom it supported in replicating it’s eCompliance software application in the name of SysBioTB, also shared the Kochon Award in 2015. Infact it can be replicated and customized for any other disease or problem that requires long term care and regular tracking. For eg: Columbia University has customized its software into eAttendance in order to track school attendance in public schools with the help of a social worker. They then counsels families to reduce school drop-outs and improve attendance rates.
OpASHA has solved key problems associated with TB management and control, that of improving detection and providing treatment, at a cost that can be easily afforded in resource limited countries. Having achieved this, it is confident of further replicating its model to newer geographies and playing an important role in meeting the SDG Goals of Good Health & Well being.

There are two 3 elements of OpASHA’s sustainability strategy. First is working in close collaboration with the Government’s National TB Program in every country. This ensures medicines and access to diagnostic facilities and physicians, all for free. This takes care of 57% of our total cost. Of the balance 43%, an additional 17% is paid by the Government starting 2 years after establishing work in any city. Thus, from day 1, Govt takes care of 56% of all expenses, and after 2 years, 78%.
Substantial support from the Govt provides great leverage and is strongly liked by donors. They bring in the balance (44% for first 2 years and 22% thereafter. Institutional donors (foundations, companies, bilateral and multilateral) belong to India, US, Europe and Australia. Individual donors are distributed all over the world, as far as Korea. Most of this funding pays for one-time expenses, technology development and expansion to new areas.
The last, but perhaps the most important element of our sustainability strategy is aggressive cost reduction. Many innovations were tried, improved and adopted for this purpose. As an example, physicians, who work as counselors in most NGOs were replaced with semi-literate local youth. The latter are part of the community and easily accepted compared to highly educated physicians, who are considered “outsiders” among TB patients most of whom are poor. Our strategy improved results and reduced counselor cost by 20 times. No wonder, “OpASHA’s cost for treating each patient in India is approximately 32 times lower than the nearest other provider.” (https://www.csis.org/blogs/smart-global-health/achieving-tb-milestones-through-last-mile-delivery-india ).

Yes the project promotes WSIS values in the community