Indian business Neurosynaptic Communications brings health care to the country's poorer citizens with a portable diagnostic kitNestled among residential homes on a quiet, leafy street just steps from Bangalore's busy BTM Ring Road stands the single-story office of Neurosynaptic Communications. The five-year-old company still has the feel of a startup: bare red and yellow walls, empty desks, and 20 or so young techies huddled over their PCs in the research and development lab.
The simplicity of the office is deceptive. Neurosynaptic's product is sophisticated and hugely ambitious. The company's bold aim is to transform, through technology, the cost and delivery of health care to India's villages. It's done through a portable medical diagnostic kit the size of a boom box. Priced at an estimated $300 the kit performs five key tests, including blood pressure, temperature, and even an electrocardiogram, and relays the information from rural settings to top city hospitals via computer. The cost per exam: anywhere from 38¢ to 63¢, compared with $5 for an electrocardiogram alone from a doctor in town.
The pioneer of this unique device and service is Sameer Sawarkar, a slight, soft-spoken, 35-year-old former signal processing and embedded systems expert at Motorola (MOT). His portable kit—which also contains a digital stethoscope and can check pulse rates—is specifically built for use by the village paramedic who goes door to door doing regular checkups and making emergency calls to locals.
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