Frugal Innovation is CHEAPER

In 2015 a global study researchers out of the Institute of Global Health Innovation conducted of low-cost or frugal innovations Bhatti et al. (2015). The researchers identified five innovations that scaled in their original contexts around the world. The hope was these innovations might be effective in the United States. Researchers hoped to identify critical factors in the possible translation in the U.S. to improve efficiency and quality of health care. Findings included a growing interest in moving care into community or home settings, the expansion of new payment models, innovations in care delivery and population health, and increasing the use of diverse health professionals, such as community health workers.

One of the common features is lowering costs by changing settings and providers of care. University of Pennsylvania researchers found that lay community health workers (CHW) provided goal setting to a low-income population with multiple chronic conditions in Philadelphia. The intervention produced .4 reductions in A1C. The lay CHWs were more effective than primary care providers in the intervention. The lay CHWs had no formal training and produced better outcomes at an astronomically lower cost.

In Brazil, the government funds a national family health strategy providing services to over 100 million (63% of the population) beneficiaries through a system of Community Health Workers (CHW)s. The workers provide basic health support. The annual cost to the Brazilian government is $50 per person.

In India, Narayana Health provides heart surgery for less than 10% of the cost in the United States with many of these realized savings can be replicated in the United States.

Impedio Healthcare provides its low-cost, effective, convenient diabetes program directly to mobile devices anywhere diabetics can send and receive texts.