Taking Indian Healthcare Online: Are we ready yet

A lot of websites today claim to offer a host of services for doctors and patients online. Some of these sites are very innovative. They all looks good and give you the feeling that Indian Healthcare is definitely going in the right direction. But how effective is their approach from the business reality point of view. How much of this is going to work today and not in 3 years?

From the business perspective I think it’s a little early to go completely online, a company only offering web based services through a portal. The biggest in road you can make today with doctors in India is offering them local solutions which have an internet backdoor offering them additional services like Online EMR, record transfer and online scheduling etc.

Of course the ultimate aim is to take it all online (our own infinitehealth which is in internal testing at Plus91 is a step in that direction) but a complete model based only on online services is still some time away in gathering steam with the Indian crowd. Just few days ago I got a beauty and slimming clinic currently using an online billing, form handling and CRM software coming to me for a local solution where they can access parts over the net. Their biggest gripe Internet speeds and flexibility levels.

I rather think it makes more sense to build technology which can be internet friendly and also highly flexible giving a low customization time and cost to incorporate. This not only makes business sense but also gives the doctor the joy of getting what he wants (A very very important factor when considering Indian Doctors).

On the online medical record transfer front there is a constant debate about how to best attack and monetize it. Today offering someone the hypothetical solution of transferring data online will not sell so easily and will not be effective unless a large number of people sign up in a closed area. I have in Pune, clients in one area, a lab, a diagnostic center and a mid size hospital. Prototyping the technology to manage the record transfer for this local group and marketing it to them seems worthwhile. Selling solutions like record transfer will only work when sold as a cross service to existing practice management clients to ensure growth as they get maximum benefit. On the other front I get actual solid clients for this rather than someone signing up the first time because it’s a new service and never using it. Much like the way some of these websites seem to be managing.