Serveral avenues have found their space on virtual platforms in the past couple of years. However, as our country continues to fight the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, the availability of healthcare at your fingertips is a crucial innovation to have for ourselves. Amid the urgency of lateral thinking, healthcare is slowly rising as the next big technological advancement for the society. The Bridge Chronicle spoke to Shyatto Raha, Founder and CEO of MyHealthcare to understand more about the Delhi-based health tech startup's strategy to combat common issues faced by our frontline workers.
Could you tell us a little about your MyHealthcare journey? What prompted you to come up with something like this?
MyHealthcare provides an effective digital healthcare ecosystem with a vision to provide quality healthcare for all. It also enhances access to healthcare delivery. It is a digital speciality healthcare ecosystem that works with hospitals, and its doctors, caregivers and enhances the patient care continuum processes.
Our core mission behind launching MyHealthcare was to bridge the healthcare delivery gap using a data-driven care process. As a service offering, it assists hospitals and clinics in building out their patient engagement and scaling their digital healthcare roadmap.
MyHealthcare has partnered with leading hospitals and healthcare institutions in building a meaningful and effective healthcare ecosystem. It maps the best practices in clinical treatment, integrating them into the various technology platforms of a hospital to help deliver 360-degree care to its patients from anywhere and at all times.
The company manages the healthcare needs of over 20 million patients today across 57+ hospitals. They currently serve the entire Fortis Group, Max Hospital Group, BLK Super Speciality, PSRI Super Speciality, Primus Super Speciality, Vimhans Nayati Hospital, Aakash Healthcare, Nanavati Hospital, Breach Candy Hospital, Woodlands Multi Speciality, Neotia Healthcare Group and many more.
Do you think digital is the future of health and wellness? If yes, why so?
Technological innovation and access to the internet have been massive driving forces for the world — especially in the heath-tech space in the past year. Used widely to cater to every possible patient-care need — digital technology helps identify portals notifying vaccination slots, leads to medical resources such as oxygen concentrators, hospital beds — and arranges virtual medical consultations, e-pharmacy services, and even tracking oxygen and other vital levels sitting at home.
The future is expected to revolutionise patient-care delivery using technology, data and digital health solutions that will address all their healthcare needs, be it a doctor consult, pharmacy delivery, diagnostics at home, home healthcare or remote patient monitoring.
Unfortunately, the healthcare sector in India has been one of the slowest adopters of digital technology and digital innovation in the delivery of care. The pandemic however has changed everything. We have been forced to adapt to and adopt technologies that are strengthening the healthcare delivery channels and heath-tech startups have pioneered this flawlessly. Some start-up health-tech portals also allow the digitisation of health records which helps in the accuracy of diagnosis, building patient longitudinal history, reduce medical administration errors and offer timely warnings, alerts to prevent severe medical crises.
With the Internet of Things (IoT) enabled devices at the core of digital innovation, hospitals are able to keep track of a patient's BP, ECG, sugar levels and monitor overall health online or through devices, ultimately empowering medical professionals to deliver improved and efficient care at reduced costs and minimal scope of error. Tech giants such as Google, Apple, Samsung and others are also pushing a whole new gamut of digital health applications for monitoring heart rates, ECG, blood oxygenation, blood pressure, pulse rate and blood sugar levels.
Several healthcare organisations and doctors are also embracing the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in adding value to the quality of care delivered to their patients. The tools integrated with AI help transform the healthcare delivery model by automating the everyday processes in the sector and providing improved patient outcomes.
The technology helps caregivers and medical professions in formulating a more targeted patient care plan thereby improving the overall health and wellness ecosystem. Digital is no longer the future of healthcare, it is an aid we are accessing to make our present better.
Your business is forecasted to cross over 100 hospitals and 200 clinics by the end of the year. What were some challenges you faced in the beginning?
India faces its greatest challenge in providing access to quality primary care – MyHealthcare’s mission has always been to overcome the shortage of quality primary healthcare by applying the best available digital technology solutions, AI and incorporating the best industry standards in clinical assessment and care protocols. The sheer demand for doctors, specialists and caregivers vis-a-vis the availability for the same is a continuous challenge MyHealthcare has faced since its inception.
But recently we have witnessed over 90 per cent compliance where our partner hospital & clinic doctors have used our digital EMR & virtual consult platform to connect with patients beyond the four walls of a hospital. This convenience has seen great acceptance from patients, especially during the last few months.
Moreover, as a start-up, profitability has been a challenge, but we are on a path where the unit economics make sense, our losses have narrowed by 45 per cent YoY, while our revenues have tripled over the past three years.
How do you think having a digital patient care ecosystem helps during the time of a national emergency/epidemic?
The pandemic has shown us the importance of having an efficient healthcare system in a country. The second wave of Covid-19 has challenged our existing healthcare delivery channels even more and forced us to adopt measures that could fill the gaps in the system to the best of our abilities.
MyHealthcare provides an effective digital healthcare ecosystem, which enhances the access of healthcare delivery. It has the vision to provide quality healthcare for all by bringing together hospitals, doctors, nurses, allied services, patient health records, pharmacy and home care services on a single platform at one-tap care to patients.
The digital speciality healthcare service launched its latest initiative to support patients and hospitals amid the devastating ongoing Covid crisis that has highlighted the acute shortage of hospital beds and other resources. The support called MyHealthcare@Home is for patients who are under home isolation due to Covid. It is connected with a hospital team that keeps track of the patient's health and wellness.
The command centre of MyHealthcare@Home allows the medical staff to track vitals, read patient notes, view medical history, and prescribe medicines among other services, all in real-time. It also lets the patient alert the hospital and make an emergency call in a dire situation. The hospital care team can assist the patient, take readings over video and monitor the physical condition of the patient. Vital alerts & patient alerts are delivered to the Hospital care team Command Centre allowing the doctor or nurse to take necessary action.
This system is put in place to not only empower the patient with access to every possible healthcare service but also to help hospitals, clinics and doctors to monitor multiple patients from a single platform. It offers the already overloaded medical professionals a convenience that saves time and equips them with data to provide quick assistance.
For doctors and care providers, the ecosystem enhances their efficiency with the portal's Electronic Medical Record (EMR), which has been designed and developed by clinicians. The use of augmented intelligence and AI-based voice to text functionalities contribute to delivering a faster and more accurate diagnosis. Administrative functions are reduced through automation and data-driven frameworks such as clinical decision support systems, polypharmacy & drug reaction alert to help improve the quality of diagnosis. Remote patient monitoring integrated with the EMR helps in creating a care continuum ecosystem.
Moreover, in an effort to further offer primary speciality care, MyHealthcare is providing air and ground medevac for emergencies. This service entails safely transporting a patient from their location to another city hospital, post the confirmation of admission. It includes arrangements for ambulances, chartered flights, doctors and nurses to help the patient during the journey.
Such facilities by a digital patient care ecosystem can be immensely helpful to patients, their families and medical professionals especially amid the ongoing crisis.
Could you tell us about your expansion plans? What is in the pipeline for MyHealthcare?
We are working towards our Series B investment over the next few months. This will help our expansion in India, especially in Tier 2 towns, cities and allow us to scale our geographic expansion by taking the MyHealthcare ecosystem to Asia, Middle East and the US market.
The funds will also help scale our AI offerings across CDSS, diagnostics and remote patient monitoring. Further to its patient care ecosystem, MyHealthcare has partnered with Healthians, Dr Lal PathLabs, Metropolis and SRL Diagnostics.
The MyHealthcare ecosystem is driven by partnerships, while we drive the technology backbone, our healthcare partners include the Max Hospitals group, the Fortis group, BLK Super Speciality, PSRI Super Speciality, Aakash Healthcare, Breach Candy Hospital, Nanavati Hospital, Primus Super Speciality, Woodlands Multispeciality, Vimhans Nayati Super Speciality, Neotia Healthcare group and many others.
For patient monitoring, we have partnered with Omron (blood pressure and pulse rate), AliveCor KardiaMobile (ECG and heart rate). We have also partnered with Artemis Super Speciality hospital in Gurgaon and Antara and would be adding more partners in the future.
