Our Journey
2011
Straightening a dog’s tail
FIH = Serendipity; when Dr. Saha (its founder) and his doctor colleagues realised the futility of trying to improve health of the people by establishing more and more hospitals (Dr. Saha has been a serial entrepreneur in healthcare, having established 5 hospitals in different districts of West Bengal, starting with Westbank Hospital at Howrah. FIH was born!
2013
Learning
Exposure to rural primary care systems across South Asian countries and Africa, obtained through his consulting work with International Finance Corporation (IFC, member of World Bank Group) and other impact-oriented healthcare investment groups helped develop the hypothesis of the 3T model. The idea germinated!
2015
Challenging the conventional framework
Shifting task from the doctor (ubiquitous shortage) to the trained community health worker held the key to the 3T model. Through a collaboration with Johns Hopkins University USA, a software was developed that would mimic the doctors mind, but at the same time, easy to be used by the CHWs even in low band-width. The holy grail was found!
2017
The Trepidation
With abundantly available CHWs now (through multiple training schools that were set up first in 2013, and then organically scaled), and the software, the first ever digital clinic was set up at Barhra, Birbhum (funded by Department of Science & Technology, Government of India). A child of 12 yrs was diagnosed with a rare but life-threatening cardiac disorder at the clinic through digital consultation with our cardiologist sitting in Bangladesh, and referred for treatment. One life was saved!
2018
The Translation
Institutions took an interest, and came forward to build translational collaborations to innovate frugal, accurate and ethnographically aligned diagnostic solutions to fulfil primary care needs. Research became democratic!
2018
The opportunity
West Bengal Scheduled Caste Scheduled Tribe Other Backward Castes Development & Finance Corporation (WBSCSTOBSDFC), Government of West Bengal entrusted us with the task of establishing more such clinics in remote rural areas. Trust was gained!
2020
Onwards – Traction
Expanded footprint of training schools across multiple states in India; thousands received training and subsequent job placement in a network of 60+ hospitals across almost all major cities in India. A group of girls, rescued from trafficking, returned to their villages to receive hero’s welcome after securing jobs post-training. Even as the digital clinics continued to reach primary healthcare to the remotest areas, the value-proposition was becoming evident!
2022
CSR programs
Multiple companies came forward, inspired by the twin impact strategy. We aligned with their CSR values; demonstrated sustainable and measurable impact on various Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).