Revolutising healthcare

Ameya Life changed the concept of healthcare by introducing doorstep lab services in Hyderabad and diabetic home care services

Every year, roughly 5.8 million Indians die from heart and lung diseases, stroke, cancer, chronic respiratory and diabetes have risen drastically, before they reach at the age of 70. About 90 per cent of these diseases occur due to multiple factors like demographic change in population, nutritional change with high calorie food consumption, low physical activity levels and change in lifestyle.

“These diseases can be reduced by organising health education and health awareness programmes, and so we started a programme from school level onwards,” says Dr NSD Prasad Rao, founder of Ameya Life. Ameya Life changed the concept of healthcare by introducing doorstep lab services in Hyderabad and diabetic home care services.

The team consists of 15 members mainly physicians, psychiatrists, dentists, ophthalmologists and audiologists. Elaborating on the health programme, Dr Prasad says, “Ameya Life sends in a comprehensively equipped school health team to private schools to provide quality preventive healthcare service.

The programme is a subscription model where Ameya charge per student per year with the fares being included in the regular curriculum fee. For government schools and government welfare associations, they provide the services for free.”

The doctors screen students for general health, anemia / nutritional status, heart defects, physical disabilities (like scoliosis), common skin conditions and behavior problems among many others. The health information of students is stored on a digital platform. “The Electronic Health Record (EHR) is a longitudinal electronic record of patient. They provide electronic health record for each student and will be given different username and password,” explains Dr Prasad.

Speaking on the prevalence of obesity in school going children, he says, “High risk screening and effective health educational programmes are the need of the hour to tackle childhood obesity and prevent disorders like heart disease and diabetes in adulthood. Proper nutritional guidance will be provided to prevent under or over nutrition.”

A recent study on urban Indian school children showed that there was an improvement in behaviour and knowledge of about 40 per cent to 70 per cent among school children after medical education for prevention of obesity and diabetes.

“In India, there is no regular system for collecting data on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) which can be said to be of adequate coverage or quality,” explains Dr Prasad. The startup from Hyderabad was shortlisted in the Tata Social Enterprise Challenge. “I am happy that Ameya Life has been short listed for Tata social enterprise challenge, if we would get support from government will cover all government schools and make India healthy,” he concludes.