First few days at work

Three days into my internship, and I can already get a feel of how hectic it's going to be in the coming 2 months. But maybe that's not how I should've started this post because it might mislead some of you.

So let me go in a systematic order. The work that ICARE is doing is fabulous. Through their pyramidal structure (that includes eye care at Primary, Secondary and Tertiary level) they provide their services to more than 3 crore people (estimated from the brochure and other reference materials). This includes eye check up, referral to a high centre if the problem cannot be cured at a particular centre, spectacle delivery etc. They also have tie ups with companies such as Vision Spring (erstwhile Scojo).

On my first day I went through the paper that started it all, called the Andhra Pradesh Eye Disease Study[APEDS] (The paper can be found here ). The study gave a comprehensive analysis of 4 areas of Andra Pradesh (one urban and 3 rural of which one was well off) and showed the prevalence of blindness there. The results were also presented on the basis of sex, socio economic status, age etc. This study gave rise to the ICARE models which have set up centers in almost all districts of Andhra Pradesh and whose models are being adopted by organisation all over the world (For example Australian Government's "Avoidable Blindness Initiative" recently decided to implement the Vision Centre model of ICARE).

The projects undertaken by the center are also massive. At present they have some 12-13 projects running which include Community Linkage for Integration of Primary Health, Rapid Assessment of Refractive errors, Sight for Kids, Diabetes prevention programmes amongst many others. The projects (a lot of which are CSR initiatives) are funded by some of the biggest organisations in the health as well as financial services.

What I am interested in though is sustainability of these centres since LVPEI is a not for profit organisation. LVPEI has always believed in quality eye care and equity and hence the services provided to the poor and the rich are the same. At the secondary and tertiary level, 50% of the services are paid by patients who have the ability to pay in a three tier fee structure and the remaining 50% services are provided free of cost to under privileged patients. LVPEI claims that the centers can provide services upto 70% to non paying patients and yet be sustainable.

If true, then this is an awesome initiative for they have a revenue model in place but with a philantrophic touch to it. I find this really fascinating and the fact that LVPEI and ICARE have been in existance for so long bears testimony to the fact that this model is sustainable. However, I would like to examine this from a closer level to validate that.

Apart from that, I am also brushing up with a lot of statistical and econometric models to further assist me in the project that I take up. Some pretty exciting projects are lined up for me here, the trouble being I can take up only one due to the time constraint.

ICARE this summer

So another year comes to a halt as the summer beckons.

After a rather uneventful last 2 summers(unless you count the trip to Egypt), I am hoping to become more productive this time around.

This summer I shall be working with a fantastic organization, The International Centre for Advancement of Rural Eye Care (ICARE). Responsible for trying to come up with ways to remove blindness from rural unreachable parts of India and the developing world, ICARE looks at long term solutions at a large scale. They also manage and plan the community health care initiatives of L V Prasad Eye Hospital, another giant in the health care industry.

So what is my work going to be? Broadly I shall be working with a lot of economics related aspects, such as cost-benefit analysis of their Vision Centers vs PHCs as well as bordering over to marketing where I try to analyze various community eye programs and newer & effective ways of spectacle delivery. Apart from this there might be other things in store that I am not yet aware of.

Why did I choose this?

Well mostly because over the past year I have been increasingly becoming attracted to the developmental sector. Its evident by the proportion of social entrepreneurship related items in my feeds.

Seriously speaking, I never thought this sector would excite and it'd be naive of me to think that this is my true calling, but for whatever reasons there might be, right now this is the place I want to be in. Lets see how the gig goes.

P.S: At the same time I have been working on a couple of other ideas in the field of community health and nutrition and am also most probably volunteering for Kiwanja, a champion organization trying to use ICT for development. Check out their product FrontlineSMS.