15 Years of SMARThealth: Building capacity, strengthening systems, improving lives
SMARThealth offers a new approach to disease detection, management and treatment – strengthening primary care systems, building the capacity of health workers, and improving health outcomes for patients. SMARThealth (Systematic Medical Appraisal, Referral and Treatment for common health conditions) was developed by The George Institute for the management of chronic diseases. It leverages a low-cost, digital platform which can be used by health workers to significantly improve patient care, especially in contexts where health services are limited.
Deployed on hand-held digital devices, SMARThealth uses evidence-based algorithms and guidelines to help community health workers assess chronic disease risks for people in their communities. People identified to be needing further care are then referred via the platform for clinician follow up.
Extending SMARThealth
The first iteration of SMARThealth was ‘HealthTracker’ used in Australia in 2009 to analyse the electronic health records of patients attending general practices and Aboriginal health services across the country. SMARThealth was then adapted and extended to India (2014) and Indonesia (2016) to support the management of CVD, whilst a Smart Mental Health version was launched in India in 2014. It has also been used in China (2016) and Thailand (2016) to support CVD and diabetes control programmes. Most recently SMARThealth Pregnancy (2019) was launched in India focussing on anaemia, high blood pressure and high blood glucose.
The George Institute is extending SMARThealth in partnership with collaborators in Bangladesh and adapting it for other health conditions including climate-related co-morbidities.
SMARThealth has now reached more 100,000 trial participants and documented its impact in more than 100 research papers – achieving widespread recognition as an effective health management tool. By 2030, we have an ambitious goal to expand SMARThealth to cover at least ten common conditions and to have scaled the programme to reach 20 million people.
