World Health Partners 2013 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship

The Skoll Foundation presents the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship each year to a select few social entrepreneurs whose proven innovations have demonstrated impact on some of the worlds most pressing problems The Skoll Award recognizes organizations with the potential to not only be individually successful but also to catalyze large-scale system-level change

WORLD HEALTH PARTNERS
Skoll Entrepreneur Gopi Gopalakrishnan
Award Year 2013
Focus Area Addressed Healthcare Access and Treatment of health delivery costs and decrease of availability of quality health care The existing health markets simply cannot serve the poor
Most developing countries suffer from severe shortage of physicians -- in India the physician-to-patient ratio is six to 10000
In India the issue is compounded in rural areas where 70 percent of the population lives but only 3 percent of the countrys specialist physicians practice
In Bihar the poorest Indian state with the population of 104 million people the public healthcare system is stretched beyond capacity reaching only about half of the villages with often low quality of care and inadequate medical supplies
A large proportion of the population receives its care through informal rural health providers who enjoy high credibility and trust in the communities but often lack skills training and access to medical supplies that will enable them play a more useful role

INNOVATION
World Health Partners WHP identifies practicing informal private sector health providers at the village level and networks them into a supply chain of medical products with support through marketing training and use of technology
Using WHPs telemedicine tools the networked rural providers connect to a Central Medical Facility allowing patients in rural areas to interact with highly qualified specialists in real time with the rural provider serving as the key and trusted liaison between the patient and the doctor
The system allows for a comprehensive and integrated health service delivery to the rural poor built on existing human and physical resources
WHP relies on value-added services technology and business relationships to create incentives that build long term business interests of the providers directly contributing to the sustainability of the network
When necessary WHP provides heavy subsidies to patients who cannot pay -- the practice that doesnt undermine the business integrity of the provider since it builds on a viable business model that has already been created for the non-poor thereby ensuring access to quality care by the poorest of the poor Where possible WHP also draws from public sector support to serve the needs of the poor

IMPACT AS OF 2013
Prior to WHPs presence in Bihar WHP estimated that only five percent of the states population had access to quality healthcare Currently WHP is on track to achieving 70 percent coverage in Bihar in the coming years
WHP rural health providers are present in about 4000 villages which are served by 250 telemedicine centers By 2015 WHP expects to be have presence in more than 20000 villages
The WHP network in Bihar is growing rapidly adding as many 400 villages per month
WHP has connected more than 62000 rural patients to urban doctors just in the component using telemedicine and estimates that about 760000 patients have gone through the WHP system in overall terms