The New ImpulsoGov

The state of public health in Brazil is taking a step forward today with the arrival of the new Impulso Gov website —a new digital data hub that helps influence health policy decisions for one of the largest countries in the world.

ImpulsoGov was founded just a few months before the Covid-19 pandemic by Isabel Opice and João Abreu, a pair of Brazilian economists who met at Harvard’s Kennedy School. The goal of the organization - a health-tech non-profit - is to promote the smart use of data and technology in Brazil’s public health system to increase equity for people’s access to high-quality health services.

Work & Co was chosen to lead the project end to end, including design concepting, detailed design, branding, writing, photography guidelines, web application development, and quality assurance.

Said João Abreu, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Impulso: “Work & Co accelerated our ability to develop life-changing digital products. They didn’t stop at delivering solutions; their partnership actually helped us improve our own skills and thereby ensure long-lasting impact within our organization. We’re thankful to the Work & Co team for helping Impulso Gov be better equipped to harness the power of technology to improve public health in Brazil.”

The new site comes as part of the larger ecosystem of digital experiences Work & Co is building. Earlier this year, Work & Co partnered with Impulso on the introduction of Indicadores em Saúde Mental, a mental health data visualization tool for the mental health system in Brazilian municipalities. The tool translates data into useful insights for many different stakeholders including nurses, social workers, psychologists, doctors, and governments – experiences that can reach a broad audience in a friendly and easy way. Indicadores em Saúde Mental is currently in beta and is being expanded to more cities. Forthcoming projects will include the launch of a design system that enables Impulso to create new products, Impulso Previne, a new tool created to ease the process of cities collecting and visualizing crucial public health data and analytics.

More than 70% of Brazilians depend on SUS, making the government-run public health care system the largest in the world. As an organization, Impulso’s efforts have already helped almost 60 municipalities benefiting 3.6 million people.

“As a Brazilian – and with many Brazilians across our company – we are proud to help build a platform that supports one of the biggest publicly funded health care systems in the world,” said Igor Oliveira, Technology Partner at Work & Co. “When creating a platform to serve many users one of the biggest challenges is the huge amount of data that SUS has about the state of the health of the Brazilian population, that data was previously underused by the decision-makers. The new Impulso Gov website is a key step as the organization continues to raise money and attract new investors, as they launch life-changing tools to transform the Brazilian healthcare system.”

The new site is part of Work & Co’s first pro-bono project in Brazil. Every year, through its Work & Co Fund, the company takes on a selection of projects that are focused on innovation and making an impact at scale.

Read more in Fast Company Brazil and visit the site.