The Health department in Kerala has readied a mobile android application named Shylee as part of the soon-to-be-launched population-based screening for lifestyle diseases, one of the components of the Nava Kerala Karma Padhati.
The app has been developed by e-Health to enable ASHAs to collect information on the prevalence of lifestyle diseases and its risk factors among all those above 30 years in the State as part of the population-based screening programme.
The app will help in the collection of data on diabetes, blood pressure, heart diseases, respiratory diseases, cancer and other lifestyle diseases and the risk factors that lead to these conditions. According to the data collected, a score is generated by the app on the health status of individuals. The app will suggest that anyone who has a score above four may visit the nearest health institution for further medical examination and investigation.
Each ASHA will visit all individual houses within their assigned geographical area for data entry, for which they will be given incentives. The data collected will give the health status of the population in every panchayat, and this data will be passed on to the medical officer concerned. The district-level information will be made available on the dashboard for the district nodal officer and the State-level information, for the State nodal officer.
The survey will thus enable the health administration to ascertain the true and exact health status of the population at the regional level and the State level which will help policy-makers and planners when formulating health plans
Lifestyle diseases are on the rise in the State and it is important that these are kept under check to maintain the successes that the State has achieved over the years. The Health department is already engaged in the implementation of the non-communicable diseases (NCD) control programme, Amritham Arogyam.
Though all health institutions, including sub centres, are running NCD clinics, there are no stats on the actual burden of the diseases in every area. The population-based screening will help reveal the true picture.
