The Tech Panda takes a look at six healthcare startups that are warming up the ecosystem with new thought and ideas for a better healthcare system.
July 1st was National Doctors’ Day, a tribute to one of the most hard working professionals in our country. COVID-19 forced Indian healthcare to revolutionise, opening the doors to infusing technology as both patient and doctor behaviour changed and adapted.
Read more: {Zoom in: MedTech} Ramping up elective care while dealing with deferred essential care
According to Juniper Research, digital therapeutics revenue from health insurers will reach US$8 billion globally by 2026.
In July HealthCare Global Enterprises Ltd (HCG), an Indian specialty healthcare services focused on oncology that deploys Sigtuple’s AI100 became the first hospital chain to equip the Hematopathology labs across its network with AI-powered screening solutions for cancer detection and disease management.
Healthcare has become a lucrative sector to foray into. For example, this month, the Ludhiana-based Jujhar Group entered the healthcare segment by partnering with Apollo Health and Lifestyle Limited.
In May, Decentro, an API platform for banking integrations, launched HealthTech and InsurTech initiatives like BimaPlan, an affordable insurance platform, and Gromo, a platform to enable sale of financial products via its community.
Here are six healthcare startups that are warming up the ecosystem with new thought and ideas for a better healthcare system.
Claimbuddy
Claimbuddy is a healthcare startup building an ecosystem to ensure hassle free insurance claim process by leveraging technology, and a set of simple yet powerful processes and operations. It focuses on building tech and financial products to make the claim process easier for patients. The company has processed claims of more than 100 crores and is working with 120+ Hospitals.
Origin
Established by IIM-Bangalore alumni, the startup acts as a one-stop solution for insurance claims’ processing by leveraging technology and strong operations.
For the past one and a half year we have dedicatedly focused on solving the claim process
Ajit Patel, Co-founder, ClaimBuddy said, “For the past one and a half year we have dedicatedly focused on solving the claim process.”
Philosophy
Often, patients need up to ten hours to actually get discharged from a hospital even after receiving the discharge summary. This is not an uncommon experience for patients despite choosing empanelled hospitals. The current in-patient experience is broken especially during the claim processing and settlement.
Claimbuddy’s combination of technology and process can enhance the patient experience multifold, at the same time making the workflow efficient across all stakeholders. It can improve the in-patient experience by providing a cashless-claim experience at hospitals by leveraging their technology and operational excellence.
Growth Story
It provides tech and financing solutions to hospitals and doctors, which improves their operational and financial efficiency by at least 30% along with an improved patient experience. The company has processed claims of more than 100 crores and is working with120+Hospitals.
The company raised an undisclosed amount of seed round last year from Titan Capital and other investors.
Doceree
Doceree is the first global network of (healthcare professionals) HCP-only platforms for programmatic messaging. It facilitates messaging between life sciences brands and HCPs through an extensive global network of digital endemic and point-of-care platforms to programmatically deliver at scale accurate and transparent messages to HCPs.
Its solutions, powered by proprietary identity-resolution technology, ESPYIANTM, enable messaging and targeting of HCPs on endemic (sites physicians visit for knowledge, professional enhancement or to connect with their peer group) and point-of-care (platforms where physicians tend to their patients) platforms. The platform enhances engagement between pharma companies and their target audience through its global publisher network in a fast-evolving digital pharma marketing ecosystem.
Its AI-powered platform can precisely identify HCPs on professional platforms based on their behaviour traits, diagnoses they carry out, prescriptions they write, and the procedures they perform to deliver relevant messaging from pharma brands in a regulatory compliant manner.
Doceree Perform, the company’s latest product, provides exceptional measurement proficiency for pharma companies to evaluate campaign performances and to improve script lift with data-driven messages in the US. In India, the U.K. and the EU, ESPYIANTM enables marketers to target HCPs at a specialty level, allowing pharma brands to reach them at scale based on their area of expertise. The company is set to introduce behavioural lift measurement offerings globally.
Origin
Founded in 2019 by Harshit, a former physician who transitioned into the healthcare marketing space, Doceree empowers pharma brands and media agencies with solutions that seamlessly reach HCPs on professional HCP networks and within their digital workflow to achieve better patient health outcomes. The company has refined HCP communications through its programmatic messaging capabilities to help marketers with more efficient, effective and transparent messaging campaigns.
Philosophy
Pharma marketers navigate significant complexity across point-of-care systems and health information systems. Having access to data-driven, actionable insights to strategize and implement communication initiatives is critical to reaching HCPs. Doceree has proven the ability to efficiently connect stakeholders and is well-positioned to serve the needs of the pharma industry.
It is critical for industry players like pharma companies and HCP-only platforms to understand and react to the digital touchpoints and behaviours of HCPs for delivering messages they resonate with
“It is critical for industry players like pharma companies and HCP-only platforms to understand and react to the digital touchpoints and behaviours of HCPs for delivering messages they resonate with,” says Harshit Jain, M.D., Founder & Global CEO, Doceree. “Our identity resolution technology and tailored products for different markets that adhere to the country-specific regulations and guidelines make it easy for pharma brands to engage with HCPs on digital mediums, while enabling publishers to improve engagement on their platforms with relevant medical information from pharmaceutical and life sciences brands.”
Growth Story
On the back of massive interest of pharma brands and publishers towards Doceree’s custom-built product offerings within the programmatic pharma marketing space, the company expanded to key international locations, such as emerging markets in the UK & Europe, within two years of the platform’s launch in the US.
Currently, Doceree is working with eight of the top ten global pharma brands and the company currently engages more than one million HCPs across the globe.
Medfin
Medfin is a healthcare startup that is disrupting and reimagining the surgeries landscape in India. Its aim is to give patients access to the latest surgical procedures that ensure quicker recovery and better outcomes at the most affordable costs. It aims to be India’s largest affordable surgical care chain in terms of surgeries performed, revenue, locations and number of patients treated.
It helps patients navigate the entire surgical and related diagnostics processes, including connecting them with surgeons, finding the right course of treatment, performing cost estimates, and insurance coverage checks.
Origin
Medfin was founded in 2017 by Arjun Kumar, Arun Kumar, and Sidharth Gurjar. They realised that India’s thriving healthcare sector is one of the largest markets in the world. Within the sector, they noticed that surgery was a core component. With valuable experience and backgrounds in the consumer internet and healthcare space, the trio have worked together previously.
A large part of the population in India falls in the low to medium income bracket and daycare surgeries can really benefit them
Arjun Kumar, Founder and CEO at Medfin, said, “A large part of the population in India falls in the low to medium income bracket and daycare surgeries can really benefit them. At Medfin we combine value-based care, advanced technology, and superior patient experience to deliver better health outcomes while containing costs.”
Philosophy
In India, Elective surgeries become emergency surgeries because patients wait till the eleventh hour, mostly due to the hassles and expenses involved in the process. Making it an affordable and hassle free experience will change this mindset and provide a better quality of life.
Innovation and advances in clinical approaches and technology have enabled numerous procedures to migrate into the ambulatory care or day care setting. This also makes the entire process more affordable as these are usually specialised surgery centers that do not take on the burden of large real estate costs and inflated staff requirements.
Stats
The Indian surgical care sector is expected to advance at a CAGR of 22% during 2016-2022 to reach USD 100 billion by 2022.
Growth Story
Medfin currently operates in some of the major cities and offers 250+ day care surgical procedures. Since the last round of funding, it has expanded to cover more cities and also introduce many more day care surgeries across departments.
The startup’s vision is to build India’s first and most affordable network of ambulatory surgery centers focused on delightful patient experience. The company plans to complete 1 lakh surgeries by the end of 2022.
eMedEvents
eMedEvents is a worldwide continuing medical education (CME/CE) marketplace. It constructs a comprehensive medical event catalogue for CME/CE credit acquisition for HCPs and connects CME Organisers with over half a million healthcare providers. Their goal is to develop lifelong learning opportunities, while promoting continuous advancement in the healthcare industry for both live and online CME/CE offerings.
HCPs require continuous education and the most up to date knowledge about their field of practice. eMedEvents provides HCPs a digital platform where they can network with other medical professionals while discovering and participating in new CME/CE opportunities.
Philosophy
The healthcare market is undergoing rapid evolution following the pandemic wave. Startups like eMedEvents will promote a holistic growth for the entire sector.
We are on a mission to connect continuing education (CME/CE) providers and physicians, clinicians, dentist nurses and other healthcare professionals to get the right CME/CE
“At eMedEvents, we are on a mission to connect continuing education (CME/CE) providers and physicians, clinicians, dentist nurses and other healthcare professionals to get the right CME/CE. This engagement holds huge scope to bring about tremendous change in the ecosystem,” said Ms. Priya Korrapati CEO & Founder of eMedEvents.
Growth Story
eMedEvents has held 206,658+ conferences so far and holds a strong network of 2.8 million healthcare professionals from 163 countries. Their goal is to organise 10,000 conferences in the new fiscal year 2022-23 and weave a network of over 3.5 million in this year.
Over the past 6 years, it has served 15 million healthcare – professionals around the world in meeting their year end goal for CME/CE credits.
FirstCure Health
FirstCure is a multi-specialty healthcare startup that provides and simplifies the surgery experience by bringing together some of the best surgeons, most modern and safe procedures at affordable costs while ensuring that the patient is in safe hands at every step and the experience is hassle free.
The startup offers a range of medical services under one umbrella and specialises in elective procedures in proctology, laparoscopy, ENT, gynecology, urology, orthopedics, and cosmetology.
Origin
The startup was founded in 2021 by Nikhil Bansal, a Chartered Accountant and alumnus of Harvard Business School. With mentorship from his family of senior reputed doctors and entrepreneurs, the startup aims to make modern surgical care safe, seamless, accessible and affordable.
By providing the right treatment by the right doctors at the right price at a hospital near the user, we want to be a healthcare provider of choice which people from India and outside India trust for high-quality safe surgeries at the right prices
Nikhil Bansal, Founder of FirstCure Health, said, “By providing the right treatment by the right doctors at the right price at a hospital near the user, we want to be a healthcare provider of choice which people from India and outside India trust for high-quality safe surgeries at the right prices.”
Growth Story
After starting with a couple of hospitals and few doctors and specialties in Bhopal in December 2021, by April 2022, FirstCure has over 40 surgeons, 40 + hospitals and clinics catering to 50 different kinds of treatments in entire New Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Bhopal.
Dr. Agarwal’s Group of Eye Hospitals
Dr. Agarwal’s Group of Eye Hospitals offers a complete gamut of eyecare services such as Cataract, Laser correction, Vitreo-Retinal Surgery, Corneal transplantation, Glaucoma and Squint at its centres. In addition to this, super-specialty eyecare services such as Pediatric Ophthalmology, Ocular Oncology, Neuro Ophthalmology, Uvea and Oculoplasty are also offered at its tertiary hubs.
Origin
The Group started as a single facility in Chennai in the year 1957. It is led by Chairman Prof. (Dr.) Amar Agarwal. He is a pioneer in the field of eyecare, known for several ground-breaking surgical innovations such as Glued IOL, PDEK and PhakoNit.
Growth Story
Dr. Agarwal’s Group of Eye Hospitals has been on a growth spree across the country, with more than 60 units added to its network in the past five years alone. It plans to deploy capital to expand the current network of 105 hospitals to over 200 hospitals in the next three-four years. The company notched a revenue of over INR700 crores in FY22.
The Group now has a total network presence of 105 hospitals spread across India and Africa. Its presence spans across 11 countries and over 12 states in India. Its facilities are staffed by a team of over 400 ophthalmologists and 3,000 employees. They have treated over 12 million patients so far and offer not only quality eyecare but also academic and research programs in ophthalmology and related fields.
