Digital Pakistan: Enhancing country’s response to pandemics

THE CHALLENGE

Breaking down barriers for more connected healthcare

On Pakistan Day 2020, VentureDive announced that it was extending its services, free of cost, to governments, agencies, and healthcare institutions. Offering our complete spectrum of tech expertise within the IT Industry, we wanted to assist in medical research and disaster response projects related to COVID-19. After reviewing multiple brilliant projects and ideas, we selected the one that we believed would have the biggest impact for Pakistan and its people during the COVID-19 pandemic: A telehealth project spearheaded by Digital Pakistan.

Digital Pakistan is a government initiative launched by Prime Minister Imran Khan, aimed at using technology for public welfare. The COVID-19 pandemic left Pakistan in a precarious situation, just like many other countries in the world. The country was battling the pandemic on different frontiers to flatten the curve. And they wanted to avoid the total collapse of its healthcare system.  

Digital Pakistan had already created different channels to connect with citizens to capture their vital health-related information and perform a risk assessment. But they did not have a platform to onboard volunteer doctors and link them with citizens at risk for screening and medical guidance purposes.

The threat posed by COVID-19 was amplified by the variation of its symptoms that can easily be confused with other diseases such as the flu. Even though healthcare leaders around the world had attempted to educate the public about the novel coronavirus, there was still a large proportion of the public, particularly in a country like Pakistan, who were unaware and lacked access to healthcare expertise.

As a first step, Digital Pakistan launched the world’s first free of cost telehealth service through WhatsApp. The initiative did a partnership with Digital Pakistan and the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations, and Coordination (NHSRC). It helped people to connect with domestic and overseas doctors on WhatsApp to address COVID-19 health concerns. 

THE SOLUTION

Creating an ultimate digital response for future outbreaks in Pakistan

With the first step complete, Digital Pakistan took VentureDive up on their offer and asked them for assistance for the next two steps. VentureDive provided a robust national health security platform for all hazards and pandemics, offering strategic support and mechanism for interdepartmental communication. This helped them identify capacity, readiness, resources and mitigation strategy to scale up the country’s response to pandemics.

They wanted a system where volunteer doctors could sign up for the telehealth program. Doctors were required to complete their registration by following the steps of OTP verification sent at mobile number and submitting their required documents. Verified doctors could then interact with citizens who had previously submitted their data through the WhatsApp chatbot.

Doctors could call their assigned patients using a masked number to analyze patient symptoms and provide the outcome of the referral.

The proposed solution provides not only an efficient mechanism to ensure a timely and efficient response in the current COVID-19 outbreak but also a robust response structure by providing opportunities to national/international volunteers to contribute in such a critical time. Not to mention that the system would provide an optimal and effective response capacity for any future outbreaks in Pakistan.

With a total delivery timeline of two weeks (10 working days), VentureDive raced against the clock to complete the solution.

THE RESULTS

Making healthcare more accessible with an efficient solution

VentureDive’s efforts resulted in accessible healthcare for people for whom it is difficult to travel or leave their homes due to the pandemic or any other reason.