Tele Health for Covid 19

Overview:

In collaboration with Health department, Govt of Sindh – Educast established Pakistan’s largest Covid-19 home isolation monitoring and consultation platform with 450 eDoctors from 14 countries and all provinces of Pakistan, these eDoctors were trained as Covid-19 care provider. This was a social enterprise project of EDUCAST Group as it volunteered to establish and provide services right from the start of Covid-19 cases in Pakistan in March 2020.

Process and Approach:

At start time of Covid 19 cases, Board of Directors decided to offer its helping hand to Govt of Sindh. The volunteer offers was given to the Chief Minister of the province through its state-of-the-art patient monitoring and assessment platform along with its globally located licensed Pakistani eDoctors. EDUCAST launched a major operation of its fight against covid through its front line eDoctors by providing tele health consultation, monitoring and support to thousands of home isolation patients in entire Sindh province. EDUCAST was lucky to have strong media support in this regard. World’s leading Medical School – Stanford University’s center for Medicine also came forward in training all Covid 19 fighting eDoctors, through its CDC standard training modules using online methodology. 6 week extensive course was delivered and enabled 450 eDoctors to get certified as covid 19 care givers on CDC standards, – first of their kind in the country.

Results Delivered:

In the process EDUCAST platform managed to treat, consult, assess and monitor over 450,000 infected individuals in Sindh Province, the highest number in the entire Covid-19 care operation in Pakistan by any single entity.

DURATION:

12 month (March 2020 – to date)

COST USD/PKR:

$75,000/12 million PKR

STAKEHOLDERS:

eDoctor
Chief Minister office- Sindh
Health Department – Govt of Sindh
Indus Hospital
Stanford University
GCS- 3CX platform vendors
Connect Communication

CONTACTS AND REFERENCES:

Dr Mehwish Qalbani
Dy Secretary- Focal Person COVID-19 – Chief Minister House

Mr Fayyaz Jatoi
Additional Secretary 11, Chief Minster House-Sindh

Dr. Abdul Bari Khan
Chief Executive Officer
Indus Hospital Network.

Our Certificate

Telehealth for COVID-19 (Sindh, Pakistan)

At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–21), Educast deployed its eDoctor network to support the Government of Sindh’s pandemic response. Under the CM COVID-19 Telehealth Cell, Educast’s platform provided virtual home-care for COVID-19 patients at scale. Key metrics and features include:

Patients Served: Over 500,000 COVID-19 patients across Sindh province received telephonic or video consultations and follow-up care through the program. At peak, the system handled up to 8,000 calls per day from patients.
Physician Volunteers: Around 450 licensed eDoctors (mostly diaspora Pakistani doctors from 16 countries) volunteered to provide 24/7 teleconsultations. This included many female doctors re-engaged via the eDoctor program.

Technology & Platform: Educast rapidly adapted its telehealth app and call center technology (the “eDoctor COVID Dialing” system) to triage and monitor patients in home isolation. Patients’ vitals and symptoms were tracked digitally, and those needing escalation were flagged for hospital referral.
Partners: The project was run in collaboration with the Government of Sindh (Health Department and COVID-19 Task Cell). Educast’s role as technical partner was crucial in connecting government resources with remote doctors.
Outcome: This telehealth intervention mitigated hospital overload by managing mild-to-moderate cases at home. It also demonstrated Pakistan’s capacity for large-scale digital health operations, having “successfully managed over 150,000 COVID-19 positive patients during home isolation monitoring”. The success of this model later bolstered Educast’s partnerships in medical tourism and telehealth (e.g. with Oman’s Health 24 as noted later).