The California-based non-government organization, Indian American Pharmacist (IAP) is now working to maintain the health-medication database of the entire population of Haligeri village, Ranibennur taluk, Haveri district in Karnataka. The study is being done with the consent of the village panchayat and is seen to be first-of-its-kind in the country. The initiative follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call on Digital India during his US visit last year.

The project which commenced this month will deploy IAP’s digital medication record (DMR) software to tabulate population health details of 10,000 residents in Haligeri village and will be completed in April 2016.

Prof Anantha Naik Nagappa, Professor, SCS College of Pharmacy, Harapanahalli, Davangere district led a 46 pharmacy students and volunteers comprising 13 groups to Haligeri and was able to profile 1,000 patients. Data was collated on every resident based on blood pressure, weight, height and body mass index.

“Haligeri through the IAP initiative will be the first in the country to maintain its population’s medical records. We are engaged in profiling the health statistics of entire 10,000 people of this village,” Basavaraj Banapur, president, IAP and a US-based registered pharmacy consultant told Pharmabiz in an email.

“It includes information on medication intake by every person in  Haligeri to be able to track the health of the villagers. The improvement and deterioration of patients’ health in the village will be remotely monitored by IAP in consultation with the doctors at Haligeri,” he added.

The objective is to ensure that pharmacists take on the onus of medication assessment of chronic diseases, examine lab reports under a doctor’s supervision to control adverse drug reaction and drug disease interaction at Haligeri. It will be a model project for the entire country, said Banapur.

According to Prof. Nagappa, the digitization of health-medication profiles of the population would enable preventive healthcare which optimizes treatment costs and improves quality of life leading to savings and safety of the Haligeri residents,.

India is already known to adopt technology across its rural and urban landscape. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India data indicates 980 million mobile users. “IAP is maximizing this advantage to review the health of Haligeri population. Now such a practice is in vogue in the US where pharmacists have interfaced with the doctors for medication monitoring,” said Banapur adding that such patient centric actions will promote the wellness of the population.

India's healthcare system often struggles to meet the needs of its 800 million people living in rural areas due to major challenges in preventive medicine and supervision of chronic diseases. Equipping doctors serving in the villages with health information technology and developing a DMR can transform rural healthcare. It improves disease surveillance, health awareness, safeguards allergy and access to regional data on patient outcomes. Further a DMR for rural patients improves treatment outcomes during specialist referrals at district hospitals, said Banapur.