Cornelious Bernard

Bio

Cornelious Bernard, Founder and CEO of Ibhar Technologies (Bangalore, India), has been awarded a PandemicTech Innovation Fellowship for 2020 to support development of an Infection Prevention and Control Index that can help organizations gain insights into how well their infection control programs are functioning and bring about necessary improvements. Ibhar will also collaborate with PandemicTech and the UNAIDS Health Innovation Exchange to pursue its goal of scaling its solutions globally.

About Ibhar Technologies

While Infection prevention and control (IPC) information and evolved programs by WHO and US CDC have been around for several years, adherence to safe practices has been patchy in developed countries and not monitored sufficiently in LMICs. There are execution challenges and those related to behavior changes and sustaining best practices leading to limited success of IPC programs. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the deficiencies in the IPC practices in healthcare settings and hygiene practices in general among the public.

Experience and Approach

Ibhar has been working with healthcare organizations in improving compliance towards delivering safe patient care with a focus on infection prevention and control. In our work spanning over 400 hospitals, we have created a standardized methodology to implement IPC practices based on the WHO and US CDC programs. We help hospitals setup an IPC committee, deploy guidelines, implement practices and provide technology driven tools to monitor and sustain the delivery of safe patient care.

Standards based approach ensures that the hospital can hit the road running with implementation and then improve adherence with continuous dissemination of knowledge, awareness and feedback from observations. The ability to record observations feeds into evidence based decision making. Recording of patient vitals leading to early warning scores and identification of Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs) based on CDC algorithms is one such powerful tool in the hands of the healthcare personnel.

Ibhar uses a ‘NUDGE’ based approach to sensitize and drive behavior change in employees and present actionable information to support decisions. This is achieved is shorter timeframes at affordable costs and delivered remotely using technology.

Recognition

Ibhar Healthcare was recognized for its solutions in infection prevention and control and awarded the Health Security Award for pandemic preparedness and scaling globally from India for 2020 by the Health Innovation Exchange (founded by UNAIDS) and PandemicTech. Ibhar had the privilege of its Managing Director, C. Bernard addressing leaders of several nations and those responsible for healthcare initiatives in the HIEx event and panel discussion on Health Security and sharing Ibhar’s response to COVID-19 on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly 2020. Ibhar was a finalist at the Startup Grand Challenge 2019–20 by the National Health Authority of India.

Since the Ibhar Solution is based on widely accepted WHO/ US CDC standards and can be delivered remotely using technology, it has the potential to be implemented in hospitals across the world.

Technology

The Ibhar Solution is accessed as a web portal and a set of mobile apps that makes it accessible to all the employees in an organization. It can be availed as a cloud based offering making it highly affordable without the need for capital expenditure and low cost of ownership. The Ibhar Infection Prevention and Control tool kit is a comprehensive solution available on a single platform that addresses all aspects of prevention and control as defined by CDC and WHO guidelines.

COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the cost of not adhering to infection prevention practices. It has shown the high cost in terms of human life and financial impact where prevention is the less expensive option. Ibhar responded to the COVID-19 scenario with a series of interventions.

With Ibhar’s IPC Assessment any healthcare facility across the world could take an Assessment of their Infection Prevention and Control preparedness based on the WHO/CDC Guidelines. The Ibhar Learn App was made available with COVID-19 related content to learn/ assess knowledge level of the individual on the practices to prevent the spread of infection.

The Ibhar EHS-Q Solution was made available to assist organizations in slowing the spread of COVID-19 and lowering the impact in their workplace. Based on CDC (Centre for Disease Control) and WASH Guidelines, it ensures that the right practices are implemented that will result in making the workplace safer for the employees. This was aimed at infection prevention in non-healthcare organizations, educational institutions and businesses.

Into the Future

Ibhar is working closely with PandemicTech in exploring possibilities of taking the Ibhar Solution global and spread the awareness and importance of Infection prevention and control across the world. Ibhar is in the process of establishing an Infection Prevention and Control Index, in collaboration with PandemicTech, that can help organizations gain insights into how well their infection control programs are functioning and bring about necessary improvements.