Jharkhand is among the poorest states of the country, and is also among the few bottom-most states when it comes to access to public healthcare facilities in the rural regions of the state. There is a significant shortage of sub-centres (43%), primary health centres (72%) and community health centres (36%) in the state. As the migrant workers were returning home in large numbers and COVID-19 cases rising every day, it was clear that this would very quickly worsen the state’s existing nutrition challenges and push an already-strained public health system into complete collapse. In this context, realizing the need to organize a well-coordinated community-centric health care emergency response to COVID-19, at scale, a programme called the Jharkhand Integrated Development for Health and Nutrition (JIDHAN) was launched as an emergency healthcare response to COVID-19 situation.

IIIT-B(EHRC) has developed this Web and Mobile application e-JIDHAN in collaboration with a consortium of NGOs – PHIA Foundation, Pradan and TRIF, and partnering with Patharitech, a Jharkhand based start-up. Funding from Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives.

This project was designed primarily to facilitate the symptomatic screening of the patients locally in the villages and leveraging the data for tracking, reporting, governance and support.It comprises features like Screening and assessment for COVID cases,Follow Ups module for COVID positive cases,Tracking and reporting of Screening data,User and Organization management , Dashboard and Analytics for taking action on Field with Offline module for screening as poor network region.

This project has been rolled out in 5 disctrict,15 blocks of Jharkhand.By August,2021 the application has achieved more than 5 lac screening in the platform.Hence e-JIDHAN has formed the backbone of efforts in JIDHAN COVID -19 initiatives.

The application facilitated:

• Door to door symptomatic screening of villagers by “Arogya Mitras” and “JIDHAN Didis”

• Creating awareness and sensitization about Covid-19, and disseminating reliable information

• Guiding suspected cases on next steps for diagnosis, quarantine, treatment etc

• Additional tracking and monitoring of vulnerable population, pregnant women

• Coordination with Medical Officers/PHCs/CHCs for medication, admission in hospital, provide oxygen support etc 

• Coordination with government officials for arranging of test-camps

• Planning and setup of isolation centers

• Overall program governance, management and tracking