Kimaya, one screen solution to reduce neonatal deaths

Neonatal deaths accounts for 41% of global deaths among children below five years of age. Despite a reduction of 33% of neonatal deaths between 2000-2009, India lost 9,00,000 neonates in 2009. Neonatal mortality accounts for a majority proportion of the world’s pediatric deaths. 28% of the global neo natal deaths are attributed to India, and according to the National Family Health Survey, these deaths have increased by 52% in the last decade. The primary causes of these deaths are premature birth, low birth weight, infections, and birth asphyxia.

During a premature birth, the neonate’s body lacks the necessary growth nutrients to facilitate healthy growth. Depending on the weight of the premature baby, a specific amount and concentration of key nutrients are given through intravenous therapy to facilitate healthy growth. Currently in India, the calculations for the correct concentration of nutrients are done manually, and then given to the dietician to mix the right dosage for the intravenous therapy. This process does present a margin of error, and neonatal deaths can occur due to miscalculations in the concentration. The manual process of nutrient concentration calculations is tedious process and can take 40-45 minutes for each neonate.

Identifying an opportunity to develop an efficient and high performance solution in this space, Josh Software, a Pune-based company focused on building innovative solutions using the Ruby on Rails framework, developed a solution to reduce the time consumed and creating an error-free process. The online solution called ‘Kimaya’ is a one-screen application for aggressive nutrition for rapid growth and development. The breakthrough solution allows NICUs to calculate the exact amount and concentration of nutrients to be administered to the baby based on certain basic inputs such as body weight and special nutritional requirements.

The pilot version of the software was used in a few hospitals across Pune, including KEM, which houses one of the biggest NICUs in the country. At KEM, the solution was able to contribute in reducing the neonatal mortality rate by close to 45% due to its high performance and efficiency. After seeing the results, the hospital provided its technical expertise and inputs to work with  team towards the final software version