New Delhi, 15 March, 2021: DoctorOnCall.org, one of the fastest-growing telemedicine companies in India has signed up more than one Lac subscriptions in less than six months in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities across India.

With the aim for providing quality doctor facilities in these regions, more than 100 cities in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities will have access to the best doctors from around the country.

India suffers from unequal access to healthcare. While India’s middle class and above in Metros have excellent access to doctors and hospitals, people in tier 2/3 cities and even blue-collar workers in metros don’t have that kind of luxury.

This stems from both the lack of affordability and dearth of good specialists serving tier 2 and 3 cities. Doc on Call will  remain very focused on its core i.e., India’s blue-collar workers and people in tier 2 and tier 3 cities.

Responding to the development, Mr. Karan Chopra, Co-founder, DoctorOnCall.org, said, “Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities are proving to be the growth engines of India. Availability of best doctors for consultation in these cities will strengthen the horizon of healthcare. We will continue to innovate to provide a better healthcare experience for this target audience”.

Doctor On Call has served patients from 150 cities till now. They have been able to do this by effectively reaching out to their target audience via a mix of online and offline distribution channels. According to a FICCI report, digital health has grown 250% from March to September. For the next year, Doctor On Call’s ambition is to become an end to end healthcare delivery provider, with a tech backed hospitalization product in the pipeline. They will also focus on doubling city count and doctors count on the platform.

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New Delhi, 11^th October 2020: Digital Health Platforms, an umbrella organization of various companies operating in the digital health space in India, specifically in the e-Pharmacy sector, recently organized a webinar on E-Commerce in Pharmaceuticals: An Emerging Segment of Business for pharmacy students. The event was held in partnership with the Ram-Eesh Institute of Voc and Tech Education. Among other things, the event focused on the need for a modern, technology driven and consumer-centric pharmaceutical sector in India and the need for a retail revolution in the segment.

Some of the pertinent issues discussed included opportunities for budding pharmacists in the sector; role of technology (automation, AI and machine learning) in retail sales of medicines; how pharmacists can leverage technology to create an impact in patient management; and how technology is improving access, affordability and traceability of medicines. Technology can be used to improve workflows, increase patient safety, simplify patient education and improve drug adherence.

Speaking at the webinar, Dr Jainendra Jain Principal, Ram-Eesh Institute of Voc and Tech Education said, “There is an urgent need for a future ready digital health system in India, something that has become even more evident in the wake of  COVID-19 Pandemic. A strong health system must have a strong digital backbone and, in this light, e-Pharmacies have the potential to augment universal health coverage and can be a game changer in digital health era.”

Adding further, Dr Varun Gupta, Convenor Digital Health Platforms said, “With new technologies, it is possible to bring in immense opportunities for budding pharmacists. Technology can be leveraged to make a huge impact on patient education, overall compliance and healthcare outcomes.”

Dr Rajiv Gulati, Former President, Ranbaxy; President on the Board of Several Reputed Companies, added, “More than half of India’s population doesn’t have access to health care. e-Pharmacy adds immense value by improving accessibility and affordability of quality medicines because it is more convenient and every batch no of medicines can be easily tracked. It opens up newer job and growth opportunities for the pharmacy students. It adds value for the patients and society at large”.

e-Pharmacy technology can create a positive impact on the entire ecosystem. Some of the ways it can do this are given below.

• As per NITI Aayog’s report called ‘Strategy for New India @, e-Pharmacy is critical and important for Universal Health Coverage in India.
• As per FICCI report 2020, there has been a shift in demand towards for at-home access to medicines during the COVID 19 pandemic. There was approximately 2.5x growth (about 8.8 million) in the number of households using e-Pharmacy services in the COVID-19 lockdown period. There was a higher representation from the non-metro cities, compared to pre-COVID-19 households.
• Another report by the CCI 2018 called “Making markets work for affordable healthcare” noted that e-Pharmacy can bring more transparency and affordability

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New Delhi: PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry jointly with Economic and Trade Mission, Embassy of Israel in India hosted an interactive webinar on “Digital Health: The Future Series II- Bridging the Gap: AI’s Role in Combating Inequalities in Health” recently.

Integrate technology with the healthcare industry:

Dr. N. Subramanian, Chairman, Health Committee, PHD Chamber & Director, Medical Services, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals in his welcome address highlighted the importance of integrating technology with the healthcare industry. He deliberated that medical devices with the latest technology help to monitor our health and Mobile technology, AI in Medical Health care equipment gives a tremendous opportunity to health care services moving forward. He gave various examples of companies that are evolving themselves in the healthcare industry. The numerous benefits of digital healthcare are more on reducing cost, more efficient, improving access, and increasing quality care leading to precision medicine.

Dr. Subramanian further added that the rate of digital health utilisation in last 6 months was more than the last 14 years. There were more than 52% medical opinion done on web browsing, more than 72% appointments are given online now a days. He has mentioned that the most important area of AI is in precision medicine and AI can bring down 60% of investment cost in drug development. He has also mentioned that AI is not only for the predictive health of people but also for the requirement of health mechanism to tackle the pandemics.

He deliberated about the upcoming healthcare trends that include advances in telemedicine; the internet of things (IOT); computing in health; augmented virtual reality; artificial intelligence (AI); chat-box; data science; productive analysis and block chain. These will contribute to a growing opportunity in the healthcare industry. He has mentioned that developed economy like US is using 15% of digital health and there is a way to go for country like India in digital solutions in healthcare.

Sharing of health data of public and Pvt hospitals:

Mr. Mahendra Singh,expert member for digital Health, AI Health, Telemedicine & Innovation, WHO Global Digital Health, WHO Geneva while emphasizing the importance of digital health said, sharing of health data of public and Pvt hospitals critical to development of digital health in India and it can go a long way in forecasting and managing pandemics and added that it should be done in framework of the Indian regulations and data protection act. He said the goal is to have accessible and affordable health for all but on the input side we need to have a lot of standardisation and structuring of the data. He further added that for digital healthcare, the need is to have a collaborative approach of all stakeholders and technology by itself will not be enough to reduce in equalities in healthcare delivery

Mr. Rani Shifron digital health specialist and founder of  Healthier Globe, Israel, while deliberating on the topic, mentioned that the critical requirement is to create the technologies and quickly take them across the globe and and the distinct advantage which digital  technologies is concerned is that it does not take too long for it to share and spread. He presented the digital health ecosystem in Israel and shared that any such initiative has to have the Will of the Govt to make it a success which is what has happened in Israel. He discussed the need to bring medical technology into the rural area to be able to provide healthcare in remote areas. He also shared that the best way to collaborate with Israeli companies would be through the Israel India Collaboration body while direct options are also available.

Dr Pankaj Gupta HOD, Digital Health, Access Health International said that during this pandemic, we see the acceleration and the adoption of digital technology in healthcare due to Covid 19 in India and Telemedicine has taken off very well. Technologies that have worked right have led to better results and are being used clinically starting from remote doctor check-up to other solutions. He mentioned that the data quality and governance are major challenges to the growth of the Industry. He emphasized the need for creating an eco-system for digital health technology by bringing them to the market. He emphasized the importance of Artificial Intelligence, mobile, cloud in digital health. He deliberated about the work done by Access Health International in promoting digital health.

Mr. Saurabh Sanyal, Secretary-General, PHD Chamber, delivered a formal vote of thanks to all the esteemed panellists and participants. The webinar was moderated by Mr. Vivek Seigell, Principal Director, PHD chamber with his inputs related to digital and said that this webinar will create opportunities for Indian and Israel companies to work together on this area of  health industry.

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