Empowering rural indigenous communities in Latin America: How Zoom helps 19Labs solve rural healthcare

Empowering accessible healthcare

Launched in 2015, 19Labs founder and former Apple and Samsung executive Ram Fish dedicated himself to supporting rural healthcare. Determined to support existing healthcare organizations with the best technologies from around the world, Fish sought out a scalable and secure solution to integrate into 19Labs’ GALE telemedicine platform solution. 

The GALE eClinic is a Next Generation Point-of-Care platform that brings together cutting-edge diagnostic technologies from industry leaders in one smart, efficient, and cost-effective platform. This solution was designed from the ground up to be operated by non-healthcare professionals in locations with limited infrastructure and optimized for low bandwidth and intermittent connectivity.

“Our most established GALE eClinic deployments are in Latin America, where we work with local governments, including those of Oaxaca, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, and Guyana,” says Fish. “We build public-private partnerships with the government by providing the technology, education in the operation of the equipment, and operational insights while the government provides funding and medical personnel.”

Vision of growth

Delivering effective telemedicine in Latin America involves working in developing countries with limited budgets.19Labs was built to provide a cost-effective solution. Their GALE eClinics was designed from the ground up to consider the costs, which is atypical of many existing dedicated telemedicine solutions dominating the US market.  

19Labs’s telemedicine solution also depends on a customizable underlying infrastructure, as much of it is built for rural locations. “We must integrate and rely on many different technologies to bring in a functioning solution. For example, we often need to provide connectivity, which we do by using different satellite or cellular vendors. Network management then needs to be established for remote monitoring and maintenance. Only then can you begin to deal with the setup of the actual medical tablets and different diagnostic devices.” Fish added.

Considering factors such as operation, cost of training, and cost of technology fixes, 19Lab’s video solution of choice also needed to be easy to use for low, long-term operating expenses.

The power of Zoom

Requiring an innovative, rock-solid, and affordable solution for video calls, Rish and team started building with Zoom in 2017. Fish noted, “We understand that even though it might look like a simple video call, we needed a solution that had spent much time on the underlying technology and provided an easy-to-use solution.” 

“As we rely on satellite and cellular connectivity to link very rural areas over considerable distances, bandwidth–very low, optimized bandwidth–was also an enormous consideration. Here, the Zoom Video SDK has outdone any other solution we have tested, allowing us to deliver our telemedicine solution to the most rural places without affecting the video call quality. We’ve even had an ultrasound performed over a GALE eClinic consultation between the patient, the consultant, and a third location outside of the country, all while a hurricane limited connectivity.” 

Prioritizing a range of capabilities to support augmented reality, 19Labs utilized Zoom’s Video SDK as they overlaid medical information, enabling doctors to easily access and view patients’ medical records without launching other programs, browsers, or tabs. Practitioners simply see patient data overlaid on their video calls. This simple experience is currently only possible with Zoom. 

Noting how Zoom add-on features and innovations have been critical, Fish stated, “We’ve integrated Zoom’s translation capabilities into the solution, which has a great impact on our Latin America usage.” 

These challenges led 19Labs to choose Zoom Video SDK to provide video calls on the GALE eClinic telemedicine platform.

Innovating with Zoom’s Video SDK

19Labs integrated the Zoom Video SDK into both their GALE eClinic telemedicine platform and the GALE Android application. Augmented reality allows 19Labs to share exams and dental cameras with remote providers during live consultations, where they can hear the stethoscope audio during a consultation. “Now, the consultation is more than just a video call. Advanced diagnostic devices are at the provider’s disposal, helping to provide effective diagnosis and treatment remotely. This has been a game-changer,” says Fish.

Integrating this with other solutions, such as WhatsApp for notifications and messaging, allows 19Labs to create a solution built on how doctors and health workers in Latin America use technology, bringing the learning time required for someone to learn GALE eClinics to mere hours.

Building for the future

19Labs uses Zoom Video SDK and Meeting SDK AI features like Live Transcription and Translation, and is excited to build with more of Zoom’s Developer AI features on the roadmap.

“We are excited about AI and the ability to add it and other capabilities and plugins,” says Fish, “which will add value for our customers and ultimately solve remote healthcare.”