THINKMD awarded $1.5 million to improve clinical capacity of frontline health workers

Source: VermontBiz

THINKMD, a Vermont-based health technology company and VTTA member, has been awarded a $1.5 million grant by Development Innovative Ventures(link is external) (DIV), the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) open innovation program.

THINKMD’s clinical assessment software and data analytics tool delivers on-demand, physician-based clinical knowledge to allow less-skilled healthcare providers to evaluate and treat patients. This grant provides for a randomized controlled trial (RCT) in Nigeria to evaluate the tool’s effectiveness in enabling community health workers and nurses to provide a similar quality of care to that offered by medical doctors.

“The DIV grant gives THINKMD the opportunity to explore how our clinical intelligence software can help to address the significant healthcare worker shortage in Nigeria,” said Dr. Barry Finette, co-founder of THINKMD. “The ability to adapt and scale our proven model in a new location gets us closer to the improved outcomes and healthier global population we are striving towards.”

There is a global shortage of 4.3 million frontline health workers, which is expected to reach 15 million by 2030. More than half of this worldwide shortage is in Sub-Saharan Africa, compounded by the fact that available community health workers often lack the training and skills to accurately assess the clinical conditions of their patients. THINKMD’s tool has the potential to mitigate the impacts of doctor shortages by increasing the clinical capacity of frontline health workers and improving evaluation and treatment practices at a limited cost. 

The mobile tool works on or offline and has been tested and implemented in 10 countries. THINKMD is currently scaling operations in additional countries. If proven effective, this technology could increase overall healthcare capacity and quality for millions of people worldwide.