When the Karma is health and well-being of rural India

Note to Readers: Moneycontrol, India’s leading financial news digital platform and CommsCredible, an integrated communications consultancy, have come together to partner with Grant Thornton Bharat, one of the largest fully integrated Assurance, Tax & Advisory firms in India, to launch Faces of Vibrant Bharat (FoVB), an initiative that tells stories of organisations making an impact on India's social fabric with their work at the grassroot level. 

Jagdeep Gambhir left a lucrative job at Goldman & Sachs to join innovators in health where he could combine his two passions, technology and social impact. While working on a tuberculosis programme on the job, Gambhir realised how India’s primary healthcare system required transformation.

Thus was born Karma Healthcare. Over the past five years, the enterprise has built a comprehensive primary healthcare delivery solution, including a full spectrum technology suite to transform healthcare delivery in rural India.

As per data, Gambhir pointed out that 70% of rural Indians seek medical help from untrained healthcare providers. Among them, 50% of women and 38% of children (under the age of 5) are plagued with high levels of anaemia and stunted growth, respectively.

"I witnessed rural folk in India travelling several kilometres to visit a doctor. While the global average standard requires primary healthcare within 5 kilometres radius, in rural India, a doctor was not available for 40 kilometres. Our technology platform can make high-quality, affordable formal healthcare accessible in low-resource geographies. Consequently, we expect more citizens, especially women and children, to develop openness towards preventive healthcare," says Gambhir.

Through an independent analysis conducted by the organisation, Gambhir could see the impact his organisation had created. "The analysis found that if the beneficiaries were to seek medical help outside of Karma’s e-doctor clinics, 45.24% of the respondents would have to double their expenses and 33% of them would have to spend triple the amount of money they spent at Karma. This clearly showed that we were bringing decent, reasonable healthcare facilities to those who could ill afford it," explains Gambhir.

Karma Healthcare’s unique telemedicine model has a controlled environment where trained nurses provide high-quality care throughout the visit, an intelligent, technology-enabled platform that optimizes the full process including queue management, suggestions to correct doctor prescriptions, doctor workload management, and patient record management for better patient experience.

"When I look back, this would not have happened without the support of various well-wishers. I believe that our commitment to the cause, coupled with our core values of honesty, humility, and persistence have been our guiding light thus far. We are confident that Karma can transform rural communities’ knowledge and perception of preventive healthcare, which can have a significant impact not only on individuals but also on families, communities and the nation," concludes Gambhir.

What made Gambhir a Face of Vibrant Bharat?

“India’s primary healthcare system needs significant scale-up to meet the needs of a large population spread across the length and breadth of a wide geographic area. Karma Healthcare's work towards providing access to quality healthcare through its technology solutions can help to transform primary healthcare delivery in the areas where it is needed the most,” said Bhanu Prakash Kalmath S J, Partner, Grant Thornton Bharat.

"To make Indian rural healthcare the focal point of your business and then deliver it with growth and impact, Jagdeep has touched upon medical service for social security in the truest form. What makes this venture a real grassroot success is its small city belonging, and technology play to deliver primary healthcare where it matters the most for India to be at its vibrant best," said Aman Dhall, Founder of CommsCredible.