Project Name: Handsheld for Health
Organisation: Handheld Solutions & Research Labs
Project Location & Coverage Area: Karnataka
Project URL: www.handsrel.com
Area of intervention: Health

Handsheld, an initiative of Handheld Solutions & Research Labs (HANDSREL) is a mobile based solution to deliver end-to-end application and services on cloud based infrastructure. It is a complete platformindependent solution for electronic data collection (EDC) which can seamlessly integrate with other applications that need mobile data collection capability. This data collection solution mCollect also includes mForm and the platform can be used in low-cost Java enabled mobile phones for all kinds of electronic data collection. In 2014, the company’s founders Dr. Shashank Garg and Dr. Isha Garg launched a social enterprise called Handhelds for Health. The company has developed for monitoring outbreaks of communicable diseases and develop an open source disease surveillance system.
The main objective of Handhelds for Health is to empower the field health workers with appropriate tools like handheld mobile devices to collect, validate, and transmit data to a centralized server. The server will be accessible to resident experts, who can use the real-time data to rapidly identify disease trends and make informed public health decisions. Supervisors verify data at multiple levels within the mCollect application. Handhelds for Health will also be able to track non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, that require continual medical attention and follow-up. SMS alerts are sent to the data collectors to notify errors.

Reach & Road Ahead

The organisation is further hoping to use the solution to collect and transmit the data required for large, community-based, longitudinal studies of diseases and other health issues. The company has recently released a new product called ‘Form Factor’ which will allow anyone to sign up, design and host their forms on the company’s servers and collect their data on their mobile phones for free. National Institute of Smart Government (NISG) used Handsrel’s mCollect electronic data collection platform to determine the effectiveness of electronic data capture in large scale e-Government projects. After the success of the pilot, the Indian Government used the application for monitoring minor irrigation schemes. It collected data from 10 districts and 240 villages of Rajasthan.