Your Doctor wants Your Appointment, Thanks to these Startups
J Vignesh
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Bengaluru:
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Vinutha Shetty is a Bengaluru-based dentist with a difference -she visits the patient's house instead of the patients coming to a clinic. She is among 33 dentists on the payrolls of Mobident, one of the growing number of startups that are reversing the way traditional healthcare works.“Lack of time (to go visit a doctor), awareness and accessibility are the main reasons why we think that this model will work. We can catch the problem early. Prevention is better than cure,“ said Vivek Madappa, cofounder of Mobident.
The company's “portable dental clinic in a suitcase“ comes with a portable chair too. “Majority of the population requires only basic protection and not serious treatment. We have figured out what is enough for a home,“ said Madappa.
Just as Mobident onboards dentists, firms such as non-communicable diseases screening startup Chikitsak and cervical cancer screening startup AIndra partner non-governmental organisations to take their kits across to the rural masses. In the process, they also create micro-entrepreneurs, who were previously unemployed or were getting low salaries.
“They (rural patients) find this (model) a blessing in disguise...when people come to their doorstep. This has made a considerable difference. People being aware and nipping it (the disease) in the bud, is very helpful for them. Our NGOs redirect them to take corrective action,“ said Milind Naik, cofounder of Chikitsak. Chikitsak uses a camera bag-like kit which consists of nine devices including an android tab, a printer and a simple coloured health chart to screen patients. The whole screening costs just `50 and measures around 17 basic health parameters including ECG, anaemia, blood pressure and BMI. The startup also helps its NGO health workers earn `11,000-12,500 a month. “The rural masses do not have proper awareness. This model is an income generation option for rural women who are part of self-help groups.They earn a lot of respect and also help in detecting problems early,“ said Devi Prasad Shetty, director of Karnataka-based NGO Suraksha, which manages more than 1,800 self-help groups across the state.
The micro-entrepreneurship model helps these startups put more feet on street. Basic training is all that is required to transform workers into “makeshift“ doctors.“One NGO based out of Karnataka, Cancer Care India, will be one of our early adopters. They will go district to district and scan people,“ said Adarsh Natarajan, CEO, AIndra. “Essentially micro-entrepreneurship is something we are keenly looking at. We cannot put so many feet on the ground. These entrepreneurs will be incentivised to take it forward,“ he said.
The AIndra device banks on the pap smear test, a method of cervical screening to detect potentially cancerous cells. The cells are first smeared on a glass slide and stained with a chemical reagent (pap stains) and put under a digital microscope.
The set-up has an on-board computing unit, which classifies the sample as either normal or abnormal and sends it to a pathologist to confirm the findings. “Massive disruption can happen in the health industry. We are doing (this) for dentistry, but it can be done for any specialisation. The challenge is how you provide a career, how you use technology to deliver services. That will be the innovation. More people will replicate the model,“ said Madappa.
Source: Economic Times, 15-12-2016
The company's “portable dental clinic in a suitcase“ comes with a portable chair too. “Majority of the population requires only basic protection and not serious treatment. We have figured out what is enough for a home,“ said Madappa.
Just as Mobident onboards dentists, firms such as non-communicable diseases screening startup Chikitsak and cervical cancer screening startup AIndra partner non-governmental organisations to take their kits across to the rural masses. In the process, they also create micro-entrepreneurs, who were previously unemployed or were getting low salaries.
“They (rural patients) find this (model) a blessing in disguise...when people come to their doorstep. This has made a considerable difference. People being aware and nipping it (the disease) in the bud, is very helpful for them. Our NGOs redirect them to take corrective action,“ said Milind Naik, cofounder of Chikitsak. Chikitsak uses a camera bag-like kit which consists of nine devices including an android tab, a printer and a simple coloured health chart to screen patients. The whole screening costs just `50 and measures around 17 basic health parameters including ECG, anaemia, blood pressure and BMI. The startup also helps its NGO health workers earn `11,000-12,500 a month. “The rural masses do not have proper awareness. This model is an income generation option for rural women who are part of self-help groups.They earn a lot of respect and also help in detecting problems early,“ said Devi Prasad Shetty, director of Karnataka-based NGO Suraksha, which manages more than 1,800 self-help groups across the state.
The micro-entrepreneurship model helps these startups put more feet on street. Basic training is all that is required to transform workers into “makeshift“ doctors.“One NGO based out of Karnataka, Cancer Care India, will be one of our early adopters. They will go district to district and scan people,“ said Adarsh Natarajan, CEO, AIndra. “Essentially micro-entrepreneurship is something we are keenly looking at. We cannot put so many feet on the ground. These entrepreneurs will be incentivised to take it forward,“ he said.
The AIndra device banks on the pap smear test, a method of cervical screening to detect potentially cancerous cells. The cells are first smeared on a glass slide and stained with a chemical reagent (pap stains) and put under a digital microscope.
The set-up has an on-board computing unit, which classifies the sample as either normal or abnormal and sends it to a pathologist to confirm the findings. “Massive disruption can happen in the health industry. We are doing (this) for dentistry, but it can be done for any specialisation. The challenge is how you provide a career, how you use technology to deliver services. That will be the innovation. More people will replicate the model,“ said Madappa.
Source: Economic Times, 15-12-2016
