Nikita Peer Β· Β· 4 min read

What’s tripping healthcare in India and how startups are tackling it

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Today, in India, banks send alerts on financial risks instantaneously, ecommerce companies use tech tools to coax users to buy, and social networking sites are creating personality profiles of its users. However, hospitals still do not have the technology to predict and alert us about critical health risks. Most of them don’t even have digital systems to capture medical data to create a health history.

Technology professionals have already spotted this huge gap and are moving fast to fill it.

Take Subhasish Sircar for instance. He holds a PhD in material sciences and was working with the NASA in the US. His friend, a seemingly-healthy 32-year-old, who underwent regular health checkups, suddenly passed away of a cardiac arrest. His health history had suggested risk factors but the doctors did not convey those to him because they didn’t know its severity.

This prompted Sircar to pack-up and return to India. He started Health Vectors, which does health risk assessment and provides analytics, in 2011. β€œIn spite of all medical advances, we are still stuck with the β€œdetect and contain” stage. But by the time you detect diseases like diabetes, it is too late as you have to start taking medicines there on. We want to be in the β€œpredict and prevent” domain,” says Sircar.

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Vishal Gondal is another entrepreneur for whom his own personal experience led him into health care.

Gondal launched a wearable device called Goqii, which is a virtual fitness coach to help you build a strong immune system.

β€œI was running a gaming startup before this. It made me round as a volleyball as I would eat too many pizzas and never exercise. After it got acquired, I thought I will download all the fitness apps and get fit. But nothing worked. I had to consult a fitness coach who kept suggesting meals and recommended exercise daily,” recalls Gondal. Today, Goqii does the same prodding through its device and app.

All his efforts at Goqii are towards reducing doctor visits. But then, Gondal is also interested in in startups that make money when patients visit a doctor. He is an angel investor in Ziffi, an online portal which helps users book appointments with doctors, diagnostic clinics, masseur, and so on. The startup claims to provide verified ratings on their site.

The roadblocks

All healthcare entrepreneurs agree that the pace of innovation in the space slow because of the β€œlack of support from doctors.” The successful ones say that the same doctors who discouraged them initially later turned around to support their ventures.

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β€œWhen you are starting a business, don’t waste your time selling the idea to doctors. You always require somebody from outside the system to disrupt market. For insights, you should spend more time with your end consumer,” suggests Gondal.

A few startups took on this space from a business-to-business perspective. For example, Practo, which started with clinic management solutions for doctors. Practo’s software tackled scheduling, patient record management, inventory, and billing. Its founder Shashank ND realized that doctors didn’t have basic β€œemail” option in the software they used to sent the medical reports even though it was a matter of adding a simple three-line code to it.

β€œDoctors are motivated by the same things that any other businessman is. Give them efficient and organized ways of doing their business and they are happy to adopt technology,” says Shashank. His startup now specializes in providing appointments with doctors.

Ziffi also offers software that helps doctors manage their appointments. β€œWe realized that most of them have systems for managing inventory and payment but not for appointments. We convinced doctors that sending reminders is a good way of keeping in touch with the customers. This gave them a hook to cultivate loyalty around customers,” shares Shantanu Jha, co-founder of Ziffi.

Sircar’s Health Vectors also connects users with the most relevant set of doctors after predicting their diseases. It has further developed clinical decisioning support system for complex subjects. β€œIt is impossible for doctors to give perfect solutions every time. Value-adds like automated diet plans, medicine reminders, and so on can also ensure faster recovery of their patients,” says Sircar. He claims that Health Vectors has a 94-percent accuracy in its disease predictions.

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Get users talking

According to A. Velumani, CEO, Thyrocare, one of India’s largest chain of pathology labs, every location has one doctor who acts like a chancellor while the rest are the herd that follows. The key is to find this doctor, call for a gathering, and make the chancellor speak for you.

Word of mouth from patients can also lure doctors onto a new service, says Jha. β€œPatients are increasingly becoming smarter with many of them Googling their symptoms to find out possible problems. We found value in organizing healthcare related discussions on a platform. The users rate doctors based on their experiences, which motivates doctors to give better service.”

Practo

Practo is doctor discovery and booking platform for patients who want to make an informed choice when hunting for the right doctor.

Location
India
Founded
2008
Employees
1,001 – 5,000
Website
www.practo.com
Latest Funding
Series E
Hiring
0 positions
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Editing by Malavika Velayanikal, Image by Karma Healthcare

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Community Writer

Nikita Peer

Mumbai-based writer at Tech in Asia. Nikita covers early stage investments in Indian tech startups. Interested in all things ecommerce and mobile. Tips welcome! nikita@techinasia.com or @nikitapeer

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