Brazil is undergoing an epidemiological transition with a historical shift from communicable to chronic diseases. Rio de Janeiro, a city that has a rapidly aging population with limited mobility, suffers from the same health problems as many cities in Brazil as well as in other developed and emerging countries.  Part of the reason NCF chose to launch its innovative Task Force on e-health in Rio is because the city’s profile is an anticipation of what will happen in other important emerging urban centers over the next 15 years.

The Task Force presents a scalable model designed to demonstrate the potential of e-health technology and processes to:

• Address current and future health challenges affecting major emerging metropolises
• Address the economic, social and physical obstacles to access to healthcare for underserved communities and populations
• Maximize the use of IT to show that a new healthcare economic model can exist

This project will be hosted in the favela of Dona Marta, a low income neighborhood in the center of Rio, where health services are concentrated in one public medical center, the Clinica da Familia.

The Task Force will empower the clinic with an ‘m-health’ package containing equipment able to collect and transmit health data (blood pressure and glucose levels, for example) from health agents and doctors in the field to the family clinic. This ‘m-health backpack’ will give medical staff the ability to monitor patients in the community more regularly and efficiently.

Patients unable to walk to the family clinic, those suffering from chronic diseases and patients unaware of their right to medical care- i.e. those currently at the fringe of the e-health system – will particularly benefit from this innovation.  Community workers will also be given simple digital tablets to collect information on each patient, replacing existing inefficient paper based records.

The Task Force, which will include an important data collection and analysis component conducted by local academic partners, aims to demonstrate that this e-health process allows for:

• Greater access to healthcare in a previously underserved community
• Increased quality of health services
• Improved user experience by overcoming traditional barriers to access to healthcare
• Lower overall healthcare costs through increased efficiencies

This NCF Task Force on e-health was designed in close partnership with the City of Rio and with a team of NCF Members including NCF Founding Member General Electric as well as local research partners and members of the local community in the pilot location.