AI in Healthcare India: SPPU Develops App to Empower Sickle Cell Patients
AI in Healthcare India: People across the world are suffering from sickle cell diseases, genetic blood disorders that are affecting millions of individuals across India, mainly in tribal and rural areas. Researchers from Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) have come up with an idea and developed an innovative digital health application.
The app is designed by Pooja J. Doshi and her team to support patients through mobile technology and provide health access with awareness. Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a condition that requires lifelong continuous monitoring and medical emergency at times and access to healthcare resources.
The commonly faced challenge by patients from underserved communities is delayed diagnosis; people from rural areas and tribal areas are not aware of early diagnosis, and they do not get a diagnosis on time.
Researchers say that this application helps patients to store and access their medical records personally, with timely health alerts, and to be able to connect with doctors, blood banks, and other health facilities.
The initiative comes at a critical time. As the app reduces paperwork and helps to support the government of India’s mission to eradicate these diseases, it is a major health problem. India currently ranks second after Nigeria in births with HbSS, which is the most severe form of the disease.
According to the data the government provided in 2025, six crore people have been screened for this particular disease, and among them 2.15 lakh people are diagnosed, and 16.7 lakh people are carriers.
SCD patients are often required to come and visit hospitals for regular checkups, which is time-consuming, and many rural people cannot travel and are not willing to come for continuous treatment.
To overcome this challenge, this “Sickle Cell Aadhaar” app is designed in such a way that it focuses on patient empowerment through medical guidance from physicians.
Doshi and team have worked hard to develop this, but this is not the first innovation; they had previously developed “Haemadhaar,” an herbal formulation that has been patented, which is designed to improve the haemoglobin levels and manage sickle cell crises.
This innovation has been presented recently at Design for Bharat 2026 under the Viksit Bharat Initiative at IIT Mumbai. The team also believes that this app will serve as a vital tool, particularly for rural and tribal communities.
