“BROADLY, how I see Budget 2018 is that technology investment is seriously being considered. I agree that whenever technology is being invested in, whether in the field of education or healthcare, the implementation may not be good — but, that does not mean that it is a bad idea.”
“The companies implementing the project are failing and that could be due to corruption. But, the government actively investing in technology is good news, as it is ultimately going to increase transparency.”
“On the flipside, the banning of cryptocurrency is not good. The US and several other countries have been mute about it for a certain benefit. Crypto is the future. Yet, there was a mention of looking to introduce Blockchain (a leading software platform for digital assets) which lend transparency to financial and legal systems, where their credibility cannot be questioned.”
“There is a lot of talk about the failure of the government health machinery, but having worked in the sector, I can say that the sheer volume of work the system handles as compared to the private sector is disproportionate, and also the severity of cases juggled here is immense. It will be very difficult for India to move towards universal healthcare, given its GDP as against its population.”
“There is some tax exemption for startups alongside small businesses, but it is not significant.”
Medicine is a science of treatment, diagnosis and prevention of disease. Each vertical has seen significant growth and developments in the past few decades and technology has played a big role in making healthcare more standardized, reachable and affordable.
So what are the existing challenges in healthcare?
Healthcare especially in developing countries like India, face challenges to provide affordable healthcare to 1.2 Billion people. Healthcare can be made more available and affordable only with standardization of medical & health information, automation of redundant processes and making it easier to share information across healthcare providers.
Fragmented Healthcare Providers & IT Systems
Mass fragmentation of healthcare providers in terms of standards and information management makes it almost impossible to manage information seamlessly. Indian healthcare industry is hugely fragmented, with only 20% being organized and the rest 80% being unorganized. With most of our healthcare system being fragmented and unorganized, the challenge is primarily to start with micro steps towards standardizing information. Once the information is standardized that data can be used by the government to focus their efforts on to areas which need specific attention. But, without the data, we are shooting in the dark. Collecting data for even the most crucial cases is also a problem. Processes and data are the foundations on which we build and target our solutions.
“Collection and sharing of data from these providers becomes impossible. This is despite the presence of many agencies ranging from NSSO to the Registrar General of India to disease-specific programme-based systems to survey malaria to HIV. Data is incomplete (in many cases it excludes the private sector) and many a time, it’s duplicated. Worse, the agencies don’t talk to each other. Further, its usage is limited because of an inadequate focus on outputs and outcomes.” — LiveMint
The Future of Healthcare
Artificial Intelligence, not the kind you see in movies where everything is done by a robot, but the kind of an application which will process and learn from data generated to guide or aid the doctor to make better-informed decisions or maybe help patients stay on the course of treatment with timely updates and motivation.
Making Healthcare easy through technology | LiveHealth Featured in Sakal Times | Tuesday, 22 March 2017
Making healthcare easy through technology, LiveHealth helps you book an appointment at the diagnostics centre and track your reports online.
Two enterprising youngsters, Abhimanyu Bhosale and Mukund Malani, decided to explore the field of healthcare after realising the existence of an extreme technology gap. The duo started out three years ago with their startup LiveHealth after studying engineering from Pune Institute of Computer Technology. At first, their initiative may seem complicated but if you understand the motive behind the project, you will understand its operations in minutes.
Bhosale feels that the idea of working on a startup was a better decision any day than appearing for campus placement interviews and joining the corporate rat race.
Through LiveHealth, they have made an attempt to change the way healthcare test reports are delivered. It is a platform that delivers medical records to patients on their mobiles, and connects them to healthcare providers thus creating an approachable ecosystem for better understanding of their medical records.
Bhosale shares, “I was interning at a health tech company and realised that there is a wide tech gap and that healthcare services should be inter-operable in hospitals where if a person chooses to go from one hospital to another for the tests, the latter should have the reports, thus making the task easy for them.”
LiveHealth also enables healthcare payments in real time. The company delivers a seamless mobile experience in healthcare and enables healthcare providers to have simpler, secure and quick accessibility to medical records and centres. Reducing the delivery cost and improving the efficiency are few of the crucial differentiators for LiveHealth.
Bhosale shares, “We provide data for doctors, hospitals, laboratories and patients. But it took us a lot of time to figure out the loopholes. The labs and healthcare centres have their own way of functioning but since it is one field, all of their operations should be the same thus making things easy for people.”
The duo has successfully established a network of 450 labs from 43 cities across the country with a wide presence in three APAC (Asian Pacific region) countries that are using the LiveHealth’s platform. About 600,000 patients and 10,000 active users are already registered on LiveHealth. The company has also received their first round of angel funding.
Bhosale says in order to achieve something, never have a back-up plan. He adds, “If I had a job as my back-up plan, I would have never taken this project seriously. I consistently focused on this venture which is why we have reached to this height in three years.”
LiveHealth is also available as an app on Android and iOS, where people can choose the centre they want to get their medical tests done and book an appointment in advance.
In the age of technology, you don’t have to get a hard copy since you will constantly get updates about your medical reports and you can see the entire details on your app.
Social entrepreneur is all about having passion for change and growth of the society
Healthcare startups with their vision to solve India’s pressing healthcare challenges such as accessibility, affordability and reliability of health services need to step in and offer evidence – based solutions for public health. LiveHealth is one such organisation which with the concept of social entrepreneurship intends to make a change. Abhimanyu Bhosale, Founder, LiveHealth in an interaction with Raelene Kambli explains this concept.
Who is a social entrepreneur? And why is it an important concept to be discussed in the public health domain?
A social entrepreneur is a person who’s focus and passion would be more on making an impact in a society, culture or environment. It is very important in public health. People are not going to do great work and make an impact if they don’t have the passion for what they do and especially in a not so rewarding segment of the market.
How would you define the concept of social entrepreneurship in healthcare?
Well, entrepreneurship in itself is a path chosen to focus more on the impact of the organisation’s products and work on the society in some way or the other. So, I think every genuine entrepreneur is a social entrepreneur in passion for change and growth of the society. Indian healthcare is very different from other healthcare eco systems. Here, we need a very different approach towards innovation and implementation to improve the lives of people availing healthcare services. Some call it frugal innovation but it makes this sound less important or cheap. The real healthcare challenge that India faces as a country of 1.2 billion people is to work with a healthcare system which is hugely dependent on private organisations and public private partnerships for healthcare than any other country in the world. Yes, we need social entrepreneurs in healthcare who see this as an opportunity and a problem worth solving. But, do we have enough incentives to keep them going? This is the questions we all need to answer.
What impact can this concept have on creating a healthy ecosystem for startups to function within the public health domain?
Honestly, it is very difficult for startups to function in the public health space. Moreover, it is difficult for startups to work in this space with little or no incentives. Nonetheless, there are companies who do their bit, though there are some social drivers which have big impact in the eco – system. Like startups working on improving breast cancer screening are doing a great job. Still our healthcare eco-system really needs a lot of these people. Unfortunately, we struggle with the most primitive problems which is lack of data and actionable information. Right now, we don’t know our numbers, for e.g. how bad the dengue was last season? What is the number of women detected with breast cancer, and what’s the average age group its generally detected in? What is the number of people who are prone to diabetes and how many already have it? Lack of these numbers blind us in our quest to have a better healthcare.
Tell us about your startup’s contribution in this regard.
LiveHealth is a company built to solve one of the biggest problems in healthcare. With a vision to make healthcare interaction seamless with the use of technology. One of our products happen to be the biggest diagnostic and laboratory management solutions in the country. With over 450+ healthcare providers using the platform to manage patient and medical records, interact with medical instruments and share medical records with patients and doctors, we are making healthcare information management simple, liberal and free. We also work with charitable organisations and NGOs where we help them avail our management services at a much affordable rate and completely automate their laboratory operations, thereby reducing errors and man power involved. This also drastically reduces their operational costs as skilled personals in healthcare is the key driver for higher costs and automation will only make it more affordable.
What lessons can social entrepreneur teach public health workers and the healthcare industry at large?
Entrepreneurship is more experimental and procedural. One of the areas where public health workers lack is organised execution of their ideas. There are many people with better ideas in public health space, but nobody wants to get their hands dirty. So the difference is social entrepreneurs execute their ideas and that’s what differentiates them.
What are the basic principles for efficiently implementing scaled operations in public health?
Well, first is a great team. Core team where team members trust each other and are capable to execute, get things done and adapt to change. After that, a system. A system or an operational process that works at a small scale, but which is built keeping in mind the large scale challenges. And the system should always consider user feedback and adapt based on that. So, if the core team is adaptable to change, they are able to execute and always listen to their customers, there is no way to fail.
Can you name a few social entrepreneurs that you look up to?
Dr Verghese Kurien, the founder of Amul and Dr G Venkataswamy founder of Arvind Eye Hospital for the obvious reasons as they have built successful empires from social entrepreneurship.
What will be your message for those who want to work with this concept and contribute to public health?
India needs people like you to come up and change things. Change the way healthcare is managed in this country. Make it more transparent, information driven and better. We bear the responsibility of improving healthcare for 1/7 th of the world. Let us take that very seriously.
