Global start-ups reach out with healthtech solutions
As the world collaborates to help India in its fight against Covid-19, many global healthtech firms are pitching in with technology. This is besides the initiatives by heads of Apple, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Walmart, Accenture, and other public and private organisations that have launched a global task force mainly to source and ship oxygen concentrators and ventilators to India as it battles Covid-19.
Central repository of medical data
One of the things throwing challenges before doctors in India is the absence of a central repository of medical data of patients, especially in such a crisis when time is of the essence and a wrong decision can prove fatal. This not only hampers the health delivery system, but also data analysis, which is of crucial importance right now to determine the red zones and different strains of the virus in populations.
Developed economies like the US and the UK have been using central repositories for decades. San Francisco-based Innovaccer, a healthcare technology company, has been part of this revolution in the US, bringing the available industry data to a single platform. The company is now working to do the same in India. It is also working with the governments of Goa and Puducherry to provide a self-assessment application that can give live updates on the availability of beds and how to call an ambulance.
“Right now, in India, almost everything is on paper. A few hospitals that have digitised their records live on different systems. They cannot talk to each other. They all speak different languages,” says Ankit Maheshwari, president of Engineering and India Operations at Innovaccer. “Just getting information about what strains are live in different regions is not easy because the labs aren’t talking to a central piece of data.”
With its experience of 15-odd years in the US healthcare market, Innovaccer is trying to bring the same technology to India with standards like electronic medical record (EMR) and Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR, pronounced as “fire”), which defines how different computer systems can exchange healthcare information regardless of how it is stored in those systems.
Maheshwari says specifically for Covid-19, where multiple strains are causing havoc and where the treatment is also based on the clinical history and existing comorbidities in a patient, a central repository can provide preventive care to combat the spread and the intensity of the disease. “Preventative care is a big part of getting all the data into a single place because you will know which patients are at a higher risk if they get a particular strain, and you can prepare them better so that it doesn't get worse,” he explains.
Health as a service
Healpha, a Hyderabad-based healthtech start-up, has a mobile platform that can store a patient's entire health history in a single repository. This single data source acts as an information highway from which doctors can glean health information at a moment's notice. People can also use it to book appointments or seek help.
Healpha investors Hanif Sarangi, president at Florida-headquartered Phoenix Business Consulting, and his brother Minaz had been looking for just such a solution to invest in to help out in India during the Covid-19 crisis.
“Since Minaz and I are both immigrants and we're looking for a way to pay back and help others, we invested,” says Sarangi. “It's something that we need to expand to build more functionality into the platform; we need to get it to more people because we think it will really bring affordable healthcare to millions.”
In the face of the pandemic, Healpha has put together a feature called Covid Homecare, which is making Covid-19 care available at an affordable price to far-off, remote areas. Raj J, Healpha founder and chief strategy officer, says it is proving helpful since people are either unable to or unwilling to visit doctors in their clinics.
Several schools in Telangana and small companies that are looking to care for their employees working from home are signing up for the feature. “We are able to connect them, guide them, and even shepherd them to the hospital based on the risk stratification scores,” Raj explains.
The risk assessment is done based on questions related to taking device measurements, such as temperature and oxygen. Depending on the answers, the users can determine whether they are symptomatic or not. “If they are, we help them get a test. If they're positive, we help them take care in isolation so that they don't get worse. If they do get worse, then we help them get admitted to a hospital,” Raj says.
Such offline care is also helping wean out those who don’t need hospital resources.
AI in pharma
After the second wave started, online pharmacy start-ups have been experiencing a sharp spike in their usage among customers seeking medicine, consultations and oxygen supplies. Practo, for instance, saw a 200 per cent spike since April 1, 2021; Warburg Pincus-backed Medplus saw a 190 per cent increase in its usage; and platforms like 1mg, Pharmeasy, and Medlife have also reported an increase of about 120 per cent, according to data shared by research firm Kalagato.
New Jersey-based Doceree is a programmatic physician engagement platform that seamlessly connects pharmaceutical brands and digital platforms to physicians. With offices in the US and India, this 2019 start-up aims to address the problem of rising cost of healthcare by bringing efficiency and effectiveness to physician engagement by using data and creativity in healthcare marketing. Powered by its proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) engine, Espyian, Doceree targets over one million physicians across the US and 300,000 in India.
The start-up has been helping pharma Rx (or prescription) drug brands reach doctors during Covid19 when one-on-one marketing has become difficult.
Harshit Jain, founder and global CEO of Doceree, says that India pharma players could use AI and machine learning (ML) to revolutionise the pharma industry, and AI deployment would help reduce marketing costs of pharma enterprises significantly, which would reflect on the prices of drugs, making healthcare affordable.
“As digital has become a crucial component to engage with physicians post-covid-19 outbreak, AI is playing a crucial role in precision targeting physicians. To deliver such a highly targeted reach is only possible with AI leveraged by real-time data,” he explains.
Covid-19 has made one thing clear, says Jain — that like our workways, the pharma marketing landscape, too, will go hybrid, with companies engaging with physicians in both physical and virtual ways.
Quick access to medical data and supplies, and targeted delivery of medicines are some of the areas these global healthtech start-ups are helping with.