Giving factory workers access to high quality healthcare
Unlocking health: THINKMD’s clinical intelligence platform supported 5,000 high quality clinical encounters in two Cambodian garment factories during a 6-month pilot with VF Corporation in 2023. The aim of the pilot was to address illness at an early stage, with the goal to prevent unaddressed severe illness.
The pilot, funded by VF Corporation’s Worker and Community Development (WCD) Program, provided THINKMD’s clinical decision support and data analytics platform to factory infirmary clinicians in two of VF’s supplying factories to use when helping factory workers. The THINKMD platform supports triage and treatment decision making, as well as creates care plans and referrals for factory workers. In addition to the clinical support, THINKMD’s data product provides insights to infirmary staff and factory management regarding disease trends, with the goal to improve factory worker well-being.
The infirmaries, which previously would treat only the primary complaint, used these tools to conduct full comprehensive assessments which revealed less acute issues, and created new opportunities for health education and counseling. Factory workers reported improved attitudes towards the factory clinic, and positive experiences of the care delivered increased.
Perhaps most significantly, after completing the pilot with VF, the Factory Management decided to continue subscribing to the THINKMD’s platform and fund it themselves, citing the important added value these tools provided. THINKMD’s data insights helped management understand disease trends, decreased worker sickness, improved worker productivity, and allowed for better monitoring of medication use and inventory in their factories.
“While THINKMD has proven the value of clinical decision support and data analytics in other healthcare delivery settings, such as schools and Community Health Worker programs, workplace health is a new arena for us and we are optimistic that the successes from the first two garment factories will scale into more factories,” says Dr. Barry Finette, President and Co-founder of THINKMD.
Jens Aas, Worker and Community Development Program Manager at VF Corporation comments, “By supporting the workers in our supplier factories with quality healthcare services, we hope to nurture safer and healthier workplaces in our supply chain. We are excited about the outcomes of the THINKMD pilot and hopeful that this technology will advance healthcare in more factories in Cambodia and beyond.”