Everwell Health Solutions is a Bangalore-based company that innovates, designs, builds and deploys user-centric technology for healthcare programs across the world. The company spun out of Microsoft Research India in 2015 by co-founders Andrew Cross and Bill Thies. Joined by Nakull Gupta, they began building a team in 2016 to champion their flagship work in digital adherence monitoring, 99DOTS, out of research and into large scale uptake in India. The company’s Everwell Hub is a comprehensive, integrated platform for adherence and patient management. Health care staff can log into a single portal to register and follow up with patients, whose adherence reports from any of its integrated technologies appear side-by-side including 99DOTS, evriMED devices, and VOT.
During the time at Microsoft Research India, founders were a part of a team focusing on technology for emerging markets and social impact. The aim was to understand technology usage in areas where access to mobile phones and other devices had become cheaper and more accessible to a broader range of users, especially in domains like healthcare, education, agriculture, and microfinance. The inception of 99DOTS leveraged experience for how to design technology interventions for development with a list of guidelines which would define the approach to work at Everwell.
Through support by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, USAID, and DfID and in close collaboration with public and private sector TB care in India, 99DOTS was scaled across India in various treatment settings. Based on the feasibility and scalability of the deployment in India, other countries expressed interests in piloting 99DOTS.
99DOTS is a low-cost engagement tool using basic mobile phones and augmented packaging for patients taking anti-Tuberculosis medication (lat. Phthisis). Each day, patients send a free call to a number revealed after dispensing their medication. Based on their adherence and connection to the Hub, programs can differentially treat patients and escalate cases of non-adherence.
Everwell developed strong collaborations with other partners working on both adherence solutions and patient management, and continued to develop the software platform beyond 99DOTS to extend to other adherence solutions like Wisepill’s evriMED device and SureAdhere's video-observed therapy. The new Everwell Hub incorporated lab results, patient tracking, staff management, and both summary and detailed reports on treatment. The Hub integrated with the national ICT system called Nikshay and explored applications in other disease states dependent on adherence like HIV.
In addition, Everwell has a diverse and growing team dedicated to realizing its mission to innovate and develop appropriate technologies to ensure that every patient is empowered to make a full recovery.
