Apollo Hospitals partners with MobileODT to increase capacity to screen for cervical cancer at lower cost

Cervical cancer kills 1 Indian every 7 minutes and more women die from cervical cancer in India, than in any other country and it is preventable. However, to be effective in reducing cervical cancer incidence and mortality, screening programs must be of high quality. MobileODT’s Enhanced Visual Assessment (EVA) System, is a comprehensive point of care tool, built on a smartphone, for cervical cancer screening. The device augments a smartphone’s optics to enable enhanced imaging while the app allows for image and patient data capture for remote consultation.

Apollo Research and Innovations (ARI), a division of Apollo Hospitals has a comprehensive ecosystem to undertake evaluation and validation of Innovations in Healthcare. With the burden of cervical cancer, it is important to have clarity on cervical cancer screening to get information and actual data from the rural, semi-urban and urban areas to get the realistic community data and perspective.

Seemant Jauhari, chief executive officer- research & innovations, Apollo Hospitals said, “The Indian healthcare landscape presents significant challenges related to patient volumes access and affordability. Traditional healthcare delivery models necessarily need to be disrupted by converging Technology with healthcare. Mobile ODT is one such disruptive technology which shall facilitate taking cervical screening to the people of India, enable early screening and hence early treatment thus slowing down incidences of cervical cancer. It maximises the chances of making cervical cancer screening programme successful.”

"India is home to 1/3 of all cervical cancer deaths worldwide. We are honoured to be working with Apollo Hospitals given its focus on quality, innovative, and patient centred care to tackle this large, but preventable challenge women face across all of India. We hope this partnership continues to expand, to ensure all Apollo patients have quality cervical cancer screening from the smallest rural clinic and telemedicine efforts to the large urban centres." said Ariel Beery, chief executive officer, MobileODT.

Mobile ODT EVA system has been piloted around the world (namely in Haiti, Guatemala, Botswana, Kenya, Nepal, Mexico, Kenya, United States) before the collaboration with Apollo Hospitals. It is important to pilot the device over 5 sites to understand the efficacy, utility and usability of the technology. The sites chosen cover rural area (Aragonda), semi-urban (Apollo Vanagaram, Apollo Madurai), urban (Apollo First Med, Apollo Tondiarpet) and high income group (Bangalore). With the presence of Apollo Hospital centres in all the areas, Apollo Research and Innovations (ARI) is in a position to give the public data, rather than restricting to only a regional data.

Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited with MobileODT was selected from 330 companies to apply the life-saving technology in India through TechEmerge, which matches technology companies around the world with partners in emerging markets to deliver tools that improve quality of life. As a result of the rigorous process, with advisors from IFC and Health 2.0 part of the design, MobileODT is launching new pilots with Apollo Hospitals and International Oncology.

Apollo hospitals partners, mobileodt to increase capacity, screen for cervical cancer, lower cost