Noora Health
Model & Strategy
Due to major staff shortages in hospitals across India, many patients rely on family members to support them during and after their hospital stay. However, family members are often poorly equipped to care for their loved ones, leading to avoidable complications, readmissions or death after discharge.
Noora Health trains marginalized patient families with high-impact health skills to improve outcomes and save lives. By training families with simple, low-risk skills, we enable them to provide high quality care in the hospital and at home. They build capacity at the household level, and place care in the hands of those who need it most. They meet their users where they are and, with low-cost tools, are able to lower preventable re-admissions and reduce serious complications.
Edith is the co-founder and CEO of Noora Health. Edith believes that everyone, everywhere deserves the access, agency and human dignity associated with access to high quality healthcare. With a background in global health research, program implementation, design thinking and a passion for meeting users where they are, Edith recognizes that the best solutions are often the most simple and overlooked ones. Prior to Noora Health, Edith worked first at The Aspen Institute and then at Population Services International focusing on contractible disease prevention efforts.
Edith, Katy Ashe, and Shahed Alam met at the Stanford d.school as graduate students – Edith was getting her MA in International Policy & Global Health, Katy an MS in Engineering, and Shahed an MD at the School of Medicine. Edith and Katy were awarded the Echoing Green Fellowship in 2015. Katy was featured on the Forbes 30 under 30 List, and Edith is an Ashoka, Mulago Rainer Arnhold, and PopTech Fellow. Edith remains as the CEO and Katy stepped down from her role in the organization in 2018.
After spending a year away from the organization to complete his medical training at Stanford, Shahed returned to serve as President of the organization.
IMPACT
Currently, the program focuses on helping patient families in four condition areas: cardiology and cardiac surgery, maternal and newborn health, general medical and surgical care and oncology.
To date, Noora has trained over 500,000 people representing nearly 300,000 patients. The program is being implemented across 128 hospitals in India, with the majority of partner facilities in the public sector.
In partnership with IDinsight, a pre-post study on the Maternal and Neonatal Program was completed in 2017 in 11 government hospitals. Results were a 24% reduction in post-discharge newborn complications and a 57% reduction in newborn readmissions. In cardiac surgery, an evaluation found a 71% reduction in serious 30-day complications and a 24% reduction in readmissions.
