Noora Health

In April 2022, Noora Health was awarded a TED 2022 Audacious Project grant and was the recipient of the 2022 Skoll Foundation Award for Social Innovation. These awards totaled $52 million. The grant included $20 million from MacKenzie Scott and Dan Jewett. ³

History

Noora Health instructs family members of hospitalized patients in practical medical skills. Instruction is offered in the hospital prior to patient discharge by nurses and via cell phone at home. ⁴ The organization responds to the fact that persons in India and Bangladesh suffer high rates of post-hospitalization medical complications and preventable hospital readmissions, largely because of lack of medical knowledge on the part of family members and a shortage of medical personnel. ^{5 6}

Noora Health became a 501(c)(3) in 2014. ⁷ The Silicon Valley start-up accelerator Y Combinator provided training and $120,000 in seed funding to the early-stage nonprofit. ⁸

A 2014 pilot of Noora Health’s caregiver training program was conducted in at Narayana Hospital, Bangalore, India, a specialty cardiac care facility. ⁹

In 2015, Noora Health obtained its first public hospital contract with Sri Jayadeva Institute, the largest government cardiac center in South India, and also partnered with the private Manipal Hospital chain. The next year it launched an oncology care program and a maternal and newborn care program. ⁶

The Care Companion WhatsApp, which enables cell phone-based family caregiver training, was deployed during 2018. Hospital and mobile platform operations expanded to Bangladesh in early 2020. ^{10 6}

Noora Health developed a COVID-19 WhatsApp during 2021 to deliver information to the families of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 and to the public. ⁶

Noora Health operates in 335 hospitals in India and Bangladesh delivering family caregiver training in the following medical specialties: Maternal and Newborn Care, Oncology Care, Cardiac Care, General Medicine and Surgical Care with a focus on chronic diseases, tuberculosis care, and COVID-19 care. ^{11 12}

Funding

Noora Health is supported by many left-of-center donors such as the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, the Mulago Foundation, Jasmine Social Investments, and the HPE Accelerating Impact Initiative. ⁴

In April 2022, Noora Health was awarded a TED 2022 Audacious Project grant and was the recipient of the 2022 Skoll Foundation Award for Social Innovation. These awards totaled $52 million. The grant included $20 million from MacKenzie Scott and Dan Jewett. ³

Another fundraising vehicle was an NFT entitled “Saves Thousands of Lives.” Paul Graham, the left-of-center-leaning tech entrepreneur and co-founder of Y Combinator, became the owner after bidding 1,337 tokens, the equivalent of $4,573,957.22. ¹³

Graham noted that, “Noora is so effective that even if you measure their costs in the most conservative way…the cost of saving a life is the lowest I’ve seen. $1,235.” ¹⁴

People

Shahed Alam, co-founder and co-CEO of Noora Health, holds a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering, a master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University, and a medical degree from Stanford University. He is an associate faculty member at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a GLG Social Impact Fellow. ¹⁵

Edith Elliott, co-founder and co-CEO of Noora Health, holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Tufts University and a master’s degree in international policy studies and global health from Stanford University. She has been recognized as an Ashoka Fellow, Mulago Foundation Fellow, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Fellow, and an Echoing Green Fellow, and worked as associate faculty at Ariadne Labs and Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. ¹⁵