India still needs an additional of 1.54mn doctors!

Sanghamitra

BANGALORE, INDIA: Awareness about healthcare is always crucial and to get instantaneous effective response, one undoubtedly needs to understand the evolving technology and the advancements being made to improvise all the lives.

Practo, a digital healthcare provider helps you locate the nearest qualified doctor to help you and make the best decision at the hour of need. The company is currently headquartered at Bangalore and operates in Singapore, Manila, New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Pune.

Shashank N.D, co-founder and CEO, Practo, gives a detailed scenario of the growth of Indian healthcare and how Practo's platform is enhancing the search of doctors and convenience with accuracy. 

CIOL: How does the platform work? How do you ensure verification of doctors?

Shashank N.D: Our biggest strength is being able to create a platform that connects patients and doctors while simultaneously digitizing all their healthcare data to enable them to make better more informed healthcare decisions every day. Practo Search enables consumers to make better healthcare decisions by providing detailed information about the doctor including his experience, specialization, location as well as detailed feedback from other patients. The platform has over 1,50,000 verified doctors listed and our search results are growing by 50-100pc QoQ.

All doctors on Practo Search are 100pc verified before they are listed. We have a dedicated team of experts on ground, which travels across all regions, and map the centers, meet the doctors personally, collect information from staff and also provide images of clinics for consumer benefits.

The other service that we offer is a practice management software called Practo Ray which simplifies and automates practice management so doctors can focus on what they do best - treating and caring for patients.

This software further offers doctors superior clinic management with unified interface to manage appointments bookings, billing, inventory and more.

Practo Ray also provides advanced analytics and automatic reporting to help you stay on top of your clinic’s operations. And can be used to send alerts reminding patients to stick to their periodic checkups thus increasing repeat visitations by existing patients.

We have built a robust system called Practo Feedback that enables verified patients to provide feedback about their experience with a doctor and/or clinic. So along with detailed information about the doctor including his qualifications, specializations and even location, consumers can actually read through the feedback provided by scores of other patients – which makes choosing the right doctor that much more reliable.

CIOL: What is your roadmap ahead?

SND: We have always considered Practo to be a global company and continue to expand in India and internationally. We will add more features, products and several more segments including hospitals, diagnostic centers as well as spas, salons, wellness and fitness centers. We will focus on driving innovations that empower practitioners to focus their efforts on patient care.

Going forward, we will continue to expand and increase our presence in India and abroad. We are currently present in 35 cities in India and internally operation in Singapore, Manilla and Philippines. We also plan to increase our footprint in Middle East and Mid Latin America.

With regards to our manpower, we’ve tripled our team to over 1200 in the last few months and we will be looking to add another 1000 people within the next 10 months.

CIOL: What are the growth prospects in India?

SND: We see immense potential in technology enabled healthcare services. Right from healthcare apps like Practo to telemedicine apps that have reached rural India, these healthcare tech innovations are brewing in India and the growth potential is limitless.

In times to come, we see health records becoming digital, where test reports and fitness stats flow into this account automatically. Thus, creating a health data, which can be accessed at any time and can be used for further research in simplifying healthcare and patient experience.

CIOL: How quick are doctors and the healthcare industry adopting digitization considering the significance of this industry?

SND: If you look at the healthcare sector, it is one of the last sectors to be disrupted by technology. Nothing much had changed when you compared 20 years ago with three years ago. Now, of course, things are looking up. We are witnessing rapid adoption scales when it comes to doctors utilizing software to manage their practice.

CIOL: What do you think are the challenges, being faced by the Indian healthcare industry?

SND: The three pillars of healthcare are— Awareness, Accessibility and Affordability.

India has emerged as the second largest destination after the US in the healthcare outsourcing space. However the challenges faced by the industry are spread across various verticals:

Low standards of living: India has one the world’s highest numbers of diabetes sufferers, at more than 65 million individuals.This trend, among other widespread diseases has resulted in the mushrooming of super specialty hospitals to combat lifestyle diseases.

India’s public health care system is patchy, with underfunded and overcrowded hospitals and clinics, and inadequate rural coverage. Residents of rural areas still do not have access to clean drinking water, instant medical attention by a trained doctor and are susceptible to communicable diseases, that spread because of the poor living conditions. in some areas, people still follow religious practices and fall prey to witchcraft, black magic and other such beliefs and procedures to cure diseases that require immediate medical attention, proper diagnosis and regular treatment and cure.

Choosing a doctor based on recommendations: For major procedures people prefer to go to hospitals and doctors based on recommendation by friends and family or through their own research. Most recommendations from family and friends may not be accurate and right, a decision to visit a doctor should be make through a trusted source of information, a company/person who can guide you to the right doctor based on the past medical history and the current medical situation.

Accessibility: The statistics for India’s health infrastructure are below that of other large countries. World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines recommend 3.5 hospital beds per 1,000 population. While the global average is 2.3 beds per 1,000 population, India is at 0.7 beds per 1,000 population. The shortage of qualified medical professionals is one of the key challenges facing the Indian health care industry.

The situation is aggravated by the concentration of medical professionals in urban areas, which have only 30 percent of India’s population. Many patients, especially those living in rural and semi urban areas, are still receiving services from unqualified practitioners.

The industry needs an additional 1.54 million doctors and 2.4 million nurses to match the global average.

Low HIT spends: India’s expenditure on health care information technology (HIT) is considerably low. Hospitals in India will need to increase their IT spend considerably to provide improved and patient-centric service.

CIOL: What are the demands you deal with from customers? 

SND: Customers want to able to find the right doctor based on locality, specialty, availability, customer feedback and costs.

In short, an anxious person is the typical customer, and his behavior is driving this sector. The customers’ decision is based on the following factors:

• Large range of treatment costs
• Awareness about healthcare disorders
• Need for quicker diagnosis
• Increasing disposable income
• Rising penetration of health insurance

We have always followed our ‘Patient First’ philosophy and will continue to take the rights steps to ensure that all our customers are able to take a wholesome and well versed decisions.