Close to 6 million premature babies are born every year in India. These babies are susceptible to Apnea and Hypothermia, which are the two most common manifestations of the major causes of mortality and morbidity in neonates. A lot of these deaths are preventable by timely intervention, which can happen with the help of accurate and continuous monitoring systems.
The founders of Hyderabad based startup, Nemocare Wellness, Manoj Sanker and Pratyusha Pareddy studied an important aspect of this issue. They witnessed how nurses and doctors do their best within the limited resources available to them, especially in neonatal care where they resort to visually monitoring the babies for any signs of distress. Both spent a lot of time in the hospitals in Telangana trying to understand the pain points of all the stakeholders including patients, doctors, and nurses involved in the healthcare system.
Manoj and Pratyusha got this opportunity as a part of their course at Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad which had 6 months of clinical immersion. They were really moved when they witnessed the plight of a nurse who has to monitor close to 30 babies at one go. That was when they conceptualized Nemocare which was later spun out of their fellowship program at the Center for Healthcare Entrepreneurship (CfHE), IIT Hyderabad which they are alumni of.
Idea, Inception & Challenges
Explaining the genesis of the idea, Manoj Sanker who is now the Chief Technology Officer of Nemocare Wellness says, “Visual monitoring of so many babies leads to a drastic decrease in efficiency of nurses and doctors which is not a good state to be in when they have to attend to emergencies. Based on the same thought process we spent a good 10 months, working closely with all the stakeholders, designing and developing the prototype, partnering with key players for piloting our device, working with vendors and identifying manufacturing partners.”
