ICMR is running a field trial  of  health account scheme (https://healthaccountsscheme.nic.in/) . We face difficulties in entering real time health data where there is no internet- (only 15 % population have internet access in Arunachal  Pradesh and even at district headquarters problem of net availability and speed is reported). We also want to provide users one interface to enter their own data using their mobile phone.        Real time automated report can be generated monthly and sent to district health administration, NRHM and MOH&FW as well as to front line health workers  using this platform.

Sample Formats: Annexure L 1 annexures_l

Sample Data :  Annexure L2

Each year about 2.2 million people develop TB in India and an estimated 220,000 die from the disease. TB can affect any age, caste or class but cases are mainly poor people. Slum dwellers, tribal populations, prisoners and people already sick with compromised immune systems are over-represented among the cases, compared to their numbers in the population. Between 2006 and 2014, TB cost the Indian economy a massive USD 340 billion.

TB treatment & care in India is provided by the government’s Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP) as well as through private sector health providers. The notification of TB cases is estimated to be only 58%. This could be even higher.

A tracking device is required to help public health officials better understand the network this airborne disease creates as it passes through the community. This would allow the public health workers to carry out targeted vaccination, detection and treatment. The ultimate goal is to lower the number of missing cases.

Sample Data Required: No

Stroke is one of the leading causes of death and disability in India. The estimated adjusted prevalence rate of stroke range, 84-262/100,000 in rural and 334-424/100,000 in urban areas. Stroke can be effectively treated by giving medication to dissolve the clot. The window period within which this treatment has to be initiated is four and a half hour of initiation of symptoms. However, most of the patients are not able to recognize the symptoms. This leads to death and disabilities.

Gamifying stroke symptoms, diagnosis and  treatment has the potential to help in creation of awareness and prevent death and disabilities.

Facts about Stroke : Annexure K annexure-k

After the Bhopal disaster, several smaller studies had been executed to assess the effects of gas on various aspects of health of population/individuals. Consolidation of these studies will help in getting a holistic overview of the effect of gas in an individual The identifiers for the different study is not uniform and thus pose difficulty in inter linking of information from various studies.

 We would like to develop mechanisms or programme for interlinking of the different studies

Sample Data Required: Annexure J annexure_j

A number of migrant and casual labour work in different workplaces such as mines and industries where they are exposed to free silica dust and are at risk of fatal disease silicosis. Due to migrant nature the individual are difficult to contacted and followed up. Due to unskilled nature of job they work at multiple occupations

An integrated programme for tracking all these migrant worker need to be developed so that their health status can be followed up

Sample Data Required: No

Annotation of text includes attaching subject, author and other meta tags to any given text. There is no tool available for annotating text using standard vocabulary. MeSH is controlled standard vocabulary for annotating text.

In this proposal we would like to develop an automated text annotation tool using machine learning techniques. Annotations and associated text (~23 million) available in PubMED may  be used for developing machine learning models. There are many Indian journals which are non-indexed and hence are not significantly highlighted at International level (https://indmed.nic.in). This application will increase the visibility of research published in these non-indexed journals to International community

• Sample Data Required: No

This tool should be able to search a repository of ICMR funded projects (both intramural and extramural) and access publications from different sources (Pubmed, Journals, Books, etc) resulting from ICMR funding and create a database. Designated ICMR officials will validate publications, reports by designated officials

The Reporter database should be able to provide a single repository of reports , publications and patents and several tools to access reports and publications from each ICMR institute and different areas under extramural funding.

Further, the reporter should also be able to categorize ICMR funded extramural research by location. An ICMR Data Book may be created to provide basic summary statistics in tables and charts, on extramural grants, number of trainees and  fellows supported through ICMR grants.

Sample Data :  Provided as ANNEXURE I1  annexure-i1 and I2 annexure-i2

Collection, management and analysis of data is absolutely essential for medical research. However, inability of identify system vulnerabilities often results in data corruption and loss. There are many tools available to identify vulnerabilities and security, however, these require expertise for running and analysis.

An easy and user-friendly tool for identifying vulnerabilities in internet connected computer/systems/devices used in ICMR is required. The system should  identify vulnerable computers/ports in our ICMR/Institutional network , be user-friendly access so that even non-technical users can identify vulnerable programs in their computers, suggest preventive measures using knowledge-base or Artificial Intelligence and identify attacked PCs/ servers/equipment

Sample Data Required: No

On this portal, a researcher should be able to find and secure funding for proposals from government and private national (e.g. ICMR, DBT, DST, CSIR, DRDO, TATA trust, INFOSYS Foundation, etc) and international agencies (NIH. CIHR, MRC, Bill & Melinda Gate Foundation, Wellcome Trust, etc).

Sample Data Required: No

With the rapid development of biomedical sciences, a great number of documents have been published to report new scientific findings and advance the process of knowledge discovery. Pubmed comprises more than 26 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals and online books.  It is thus not easy for scientific professionals to find experts from India on a certain topic in the biomedical domain from databases like Pubmed. A novel solution for finding relevant biomedical expert from India (having high impact publications) for a specific topic query by mining MEDLINE/Pubmed and other relevant data sources is required for engaging them in various scientific committees and undertaking peer review process for screening projects submitted by different investigators at ICMR. Further, the system may allow an ICMR program officer to initiate a crosstalk between subject experts on a topic of interest for identifying priority areas for research.

Sample Data Required: No

Immunization is one of the most cost-effective interventions to prevent avoidable sickness, disability and death. In India, one-third of our children are not vaccinated. Most vaccines are heat sensitive and remain potent between 2 degree celsius and 8 degree celsius. Thus maintaining a cold chain becomes critical to their efficacy. At least 25 per cent of the vaccines go waste even before reaching the doctors and patients while many lose their efficacy by the time they are administered.   There are a few key factors that contribute to this wastage. One is the cold chain infrastructure, the ability to store, transport and sell temperature sensitive products. The second problem is frequent power outages, so that even if cold chain infrastructure is available, lack of real-time monitoring of temperature will lead to 25% wastage. This is a major challenge to the government which is trying to expand the immunisation coverage.

An end-to-end IT solution for cold chain monitoring is required. A real time electronic vaccine intelligence network which will enable vaccine stock management as well as monitoring of cold chain temperature through smart wireless sensor based technology, sending data to the cloud and alerts to pharma and logistic chains is required.

Sample Data Required: No

Health of workers and Work place health issues are a significant challenge for a developing country like India. Presently, a certain number of notifiable diseases are reported under the Factories Act. Many workplaces and unorganized workers are covered under the ESI benefit scheme and take treatment in the ESI medical Institutions. There is scope for improving the data on occupational health for planning specific public health interventions.

A real time monitoring of workers health problems to provide leads on work place issues like exposures at workplace or any outbreaks or epidemics is necessary at the level of the ESI medical institution, district level , state level Dept. of Public health. This common monitoring platform can also provide data on workers who availed sickness benefit, disability benefits and provide data on notifiable diseases. The common software platform will be help in identifying priority areas for research in occupational health  and  identify research questions.

Sample Data Required: No

EPR (Electronic Patient Record) facilitates research on patient data by aiding in creation of disease-specific databases and data mining. Additionally, it saves paper and reduces errors caused by writing.

The poor use of EPRs in Indian government hospitals, has led to a huge loss of patient information. An important reason for poor use of EPR has been that the number of patients visiting the hospitals is huge and resources are limited.

Software that aids in real time conversion of speech to electronic data with in-built language translators is needed. This will facilitate capturing the patient information to a format that can aid in database/repository creation of several diseases. Tools for analysis of captured information will help in disease diagnosis and better patient management.

Sample Data Required: No

There are many features that distinguishes normal cells from abnormal cells. Features include texture, cytoplasm to nucleos ratio, cytoplasm granularity, color etc.

In this proposal we would like to develop a suite for distnigusing normal and abnormal cells using the features of cytoplasm granularity, texture and color.

Video  :  Annexure H video-probem-statement-15-16

Automated identification of cell boundaries from the pathological slides holds tremendous potential for cancer diagnosis. Most image analysis tools for the above purpose use high resolution images which are first difficult to take and second require high RAM for analysis.

In this proposal we would like to develop a solution for capturing a regular video of the slide by moving a regular camera, decomposing the video to frames and identifying cell boundaries in frames using regular image analysis techniques.

Video  :  ANNEXURE H video-probem-statement-15-16

Pangenome is union-set of genes from strains of given species. Pan and core genome is very important for identifying biomarkers, surrogate markers, vaccine and drug candidates. There are tools available for developing pan-genome using binary matrix.

In this proposal we would like to develop a tool for making pan-genome and core genome from short-reads. No such tool is available till date.

Sample Data Required: No

India is a vast country divided into revenue districts for administrative purposes and has diverse health care facilities in urban and  rural areas.

A mapping of entire country in terms of metropolitan/city,district,sub-district/taluk, town, village, hamlet level with reference to pin codes, wards  will help in mapping the healthcare system as well as identifying the location of persons / cases participating in different health surveys/registries. This mapping should be interactive, pictorial and easy to use

Sample Data Required: No

ICMR intramural research program (IRP) has 32 institutes around the country catering to different areas of health research. ICMR’s IRP can push biomedical science forward by sharing access to state-of-the-art facilities and resources. By combining forces, Intramural investigators can  find new ways to answer research questions that no single person could accomplish alone. Further the facilities can be made available to researchers funded by ICMR under extramural program.

An online repository of large equipments at various ICMR institutes needs to be created. The details of instruments need to be added by individual institutes and access to these may be requested online for a specified duration. All communication needs to be through this website/portal. A facility for addition or removal of institutes may be provided.

Sample proforma : Annexure G annexure-g

The biggest burden of malaria in India is borne by the most backward, poor and remote parts of the country. Surveillance is the key to malaria control. Hard to reach areas pose challenge to surveillance. Difficult terrain, insurgency, inadequate supply chain management, vacancies of public health personnel often make surveillance a challenging task.

There is need to introduce innovative strategies to improve surveillance. The technology should be effective in rapidly detecting cases and treating malaria in the remote areas.

Proforma:  ANNEXURE F annexure-f

Cervical cancer is a one of the highest-burden cancers among Indian women. Indian women living with HIV are at 15.7[95% CI 11.0-22.0] times higher risk of developing cervical cancer as compared to other women in same population. Systematized and well executed cervical cancer screening programs are known to significantly reduce cervical cancer burden.

An  automated cell-phone based (‘sms’) reminder and clinical follow up system as a systematized public health intervention for screening and detection of cervical pre-cancer among HIV Infected women attending ART centres is needed.

Sample Data:

Dummy excel based database of persons attending HIV clinic: Annexure E1 annexure-e1

Format of Individual E-Card for Cervical Cancer Screening  : Annexure E2 annexure-e2

Technical requirements: Annexure E3 annexure-e3

National Institute of Epidemiology (NIE), Chennai is conducting many research studies by keeping the health of the community as main focus.  Our staff are visiting the community to collect the data regarding their health, demographic characteristics etc. Currently paper based data collection is practiced, which need more man power and other consumables.  A Tablet based ‘app’ for data collection is very much needed as against the present manual data entry method. Real time analysis will add more value to this module.

Sample Formats:

The variables (data) may be in the following formats:

1)  Participant’s id:                              xxxxx

2)  House Hold No.:                             xxxxx

3)  Age:          xx

4)  Sex:          x

5)  Height (CM):          xxx.xx

6)  Weight (CM):          xxx.xx

7)  Income:          xxxxx

Seventy per cent of population in India resides in rural area. Birth and Death registration in the rural area are incomplete and the available data takes time to reach at the central level. An APP has the potential of real time transfer of this information directly from the rural area to the designated centre. A form (as per provisions of the Act)  needs  to be filled. However, only information sent by  a designated person or informant (information verified by designated persons as per the Registration of Births and Deaths Act) will be  collected in database. Authentication checks will be required. Alternate provision of sending data from a birth or death certificate can also be provided.  The system will undergo a field trial once developed.

Sample Formats: Annexure C and D annexure-c-and-d

For Registrars and informants for rural areas see https://des.kar.nic.in/docs/crs_desc.pdf

ICMR’s Management of Acute Coronary Event (MACE) registries are ongoing in 39 centres around the country to assess real time outcomes in patients with ACS (heart attack).The registry will benefit from having an ACS risk model predicting the risk of heart attack and death in next six months of the acute event in the App (e,g. GRACE ACS Risk Model ; https://www.outcomes-umassmed.org/grace/acs_risk/acs_risk_content.html ).

Sample Data:   Data of 100 patients for developing this App is provided at Annexure B annexure-b

ICMR’s Management of Acute Coronary Event (MACE) registries are ongoing in 39 centres around the country to assess real time outcomes in patients with ACS (heart attack). The registry is planned to be made open to all hospitals in order to expand the network. An app for collecting data on the prescribed format (is required.

Proforma :  https://14.139.60.56:8085/

Login ID- demo   ;  Password –  demo123