drshruti’s blog

Hi guys. Have you seen a sudden surge in the number of healthcare portals and websites in India ? I have been to most of them. It’s a good thing happening in India. Wanted to share a lot about the latest trends in the online health portals but could not find a right place to start until the guys at www.healthcaremagic.com allowed me to post it in their corporate blog. Thanks.

A strange thing that I have been seeing is that all the health portals are going down the route of being a yellow pages directory as well. Everyone lists down thousands of doctors and hospitals and most of the data records are either incomplete or wrong. What’s the use for such data when anyone can get it from Just Dial within seconds. The idea is to make use of the data and then provide services to the patients like fixing appointments or getting discounts. The pull of a portal is not because the portal has a few hundred thousand doctors listed. The strength is in providing me only 10 doctors in my city but they should be good and recommendable doctors.

Another aspect which is commonly seen is the Symptom tracker. The health websites are linked to sites like Harvard medical school or Mayo Clinic. Again, I feel it is useless after trying atleast 5 such sites. The point is that I get even more confused when these symptom trackers throw up 5-10 possible causes of my problem. I tried sore throat and fever. The result generated included all diseases that can cause sore throat including Throat Cancer. Can you imagine !! I come for a simple thing like sore throat and I get Throat Cancer as the cause. Never to visit such sites again. Best is to either call or have live chat with a doctor. If not, atleast send an email and get a response from a real doctor and not through an automated tool.

Third item which is slightly troublesome is the static content. I see sites with content from all over the world on it. Why so much of effort when I can google out the best content from parent sites or I can go to sites like wikipedia for authentic content.

The trend that is missing is the concept of Wellness and Health. Personalization. The best thing to see on sites like Healthcaremagic.com is that they give access to real doctors and the suggestion is 100% personalized to me. For the same problem, I get a different advice than what another patient with diabetes will get on healthcaremagic. This service is marvellous. Would like to see a few more things on your portal. You should provide interactive tools where I can create my own targets, create my own project and keep doing my own assessment. If I am 86 kgs and overweight by 12 kgs, there should be a tool that can assess my current situation and help me in creating a project for 12 months, in which I reduce 12 kgs.

I don’t know if this portal will have those features but atleast would love to see such features on the portal. What about alternative therapies ? Ayurveda, Yoga, homeopathy, meditation etc. Atleast, the portals can provide content for that as it is difficult to find indianized wellness content through google / wikipedia.

Anyways, good to share my views. If anyone shares the same idea, please connect with me by posting a comment on this post.

Visit www.healthcaremagic.com for More !!

What brand of shirt and trouser do you wear ?  Allen Solly, Van Heusen, Polo ! Each costing you atleast a couple of thousand bucks !! How often do you go to restaurants, pubs ? Once in a week, twice in  week, costing atleast 500 Rs each time.

Irrespective of whether you are a young bachelor , or a young couple  recently married and having one or no kids or you are a middle aged person with a high school going child, there’s no denying that the spending pattern of the Indians have changed a lot in the last few years. Everyone spends on branded products. The local tailors have long perished at the on-set of major apparel brands. India is on a move. Everyone earns decent amount of money in the metros. Thousand rupees has no value today in metros.

Have you ever thought how we react when we talk about the spend on Healthcare. My God !! his fees is 400 bucks. He just made a big hole in my budget. My goodness, this medicine costs 94 Rs. I stopped the antibiotic because I got well in 2 tablets. You know what - each tablet costed 14 bucks. The doctors these days just give you expensive medicine !!

Come on, I just want to ask these so called Rising Indian Middle Class. They can spend thousands on a shirt, thousands on a massage, facial, pedicure, hair cut; lakhs on a foreign trip. But when it comes to their own health, it seems they become the same old small town middle class hesitant to spend every penny they have. It is very surprisng to see people cribbing for doctors fees, medicine cost etc when their vehicles would have guzzled up more petrol in reaching the doctor and hospital. It’s all in the mind. Service industry is still in shambles because people don’t want to pay unless it becomes a question of life and death. Very few people buy health insurance on their own, citing reasons like their company gives them an insurance coverage already. How small is that corporate provided insurance, nobody cares.

Is it time when we start taking our health as seriously as we purchase our shirt or buy a pizza !! How many of the people over 30 actually go for a full body check up each year ? How many have ever paid for it ? Everyone is looking for FREE items when it comes to his / her own health. According to a survey, 90% of the young people in Bangalore have undergone health check up only because the health insurance company mandated them to get it done for free. Had it been a paid service, again, very few of these 90% would have been even insured.

Interesting to read such findings but it is time when we start allocating a certain percentage of our income. Even 2-5 Rs. per day to take care of our health coverage for life. People need to understand that health is not a one time down-payment item. It needs to be invested throughout the life time. Why become so stingy when it comes to our own health.

For Having FREE Live Chat With Online Doctors Visit www.healthcaremagic.com !!

According to the latest issue of “Outlook Business” magazine, the healthcare services in India’s private hospitals is getting world class. However, the customer service at the same private hospitals is not able to catch up with the rapid developments in the infrastructure of the hospital. The patients are happy with the patient care but they are still unhappy with the quality of customer care they get. Waiting in the queue, doctor not available on time, payment hassles etc.
 
A new trend that is coming up in this eco-system of traditional healthcare delivery through Hospitals / Clinics is “Online Healthcare”. The doctors and hospitals can look at this as a channel that filters the patients and then forwards them to the doctors and hospitals for treatment.
 
Online Healthcare includes a few important aspects as mentioned below. At the core of the system is a central web-site or portal.

• It provides an access to doctor online for Live Chat. The patients can use the Internet and chat with the doctor. The doctors can provide medical advice to handle the current situation and then refer the patient to the nearest hospital and doctor in their locality. Doctors also provide answers for the common medical queries.
• It provides patient generated reviews about the hospitals and doctors and also the contact details of the doctors and hospitals.
• It provides a Forum where people of similar health problems can discuss with each other.
• The website also provides content in the form of answers to common queries, which the patients might have.
• The website has common health tools and price listings for the common medical procedures in hospitals.
• Patients can buy medicine over the Internet and it will be delivered to their home.

Such trend is already popular in the USA and Europe. Many websites like www.webmd.com is widely used worldwide. In India, www.healthcaremagic.com has recently started this service and has already referred hundreds of patients for OPD and IPD procedures in Bangalore.
 
From a patient’s perspective, he gets to know a lot before rushing to a hospital. Let’s see the trend now. If the patient falls ill, he will ask a couple of friends about their experiences with doctors. The information from these people is limited. It is not in terms of information, but in terms of the quality of information. The information might cover everything about how people felt about the experience, in terms of the doctor’s demeanour, the cleanliness of the place among other things. But the information will be limited in terms of important criteria like qualifications of the doctor, experience of the doctor, affiliations of the doctor among other things. It is understandable in the current scheme of things.However this is the age of information and we need it in adequate amounts to make informed decisions about our health. Without getting into lengthy debates about the healthcare scene, the Online Healthcare service providers are trying to offer more information and assisting people in their quest for informed healthcare decisions.
 
This seems to be the beginning of Consumer Driven Healthcare Informatics in India. It’s a kind of decision support system where the patients get right advice and recommendations for free. So whatever used to be a “word of mouth referral” is slowly migrating to “click and find” referral. What else can a patient expect - his appointment is fixed with a specialist, he knows the consultation fees, and when he goes to the hospital or clinic, he does not have to wait in a queue and to his surprise, he finds that the doctor was expecting him.
 
Online Healthcare services open up new channels for young doctors who are preparing for their post-graduate examinations but need to earn while they prepare for examinations. It is also good opportunity for those doctors who do not want to set up their personal clinics. It is also a good avenue for senior retired doctors in medicine and family practice, who bring in decades of experience in providing guidance and suggestions to patients.
 
Seeing the way healthcare services are moving today and the way people are demanding a good customer service, it seems Online Healthcare is a positive step towards improvement.

For Having a Live Chat With Online Doctors Visit www.healthcaremagic.com

Just got the news that we are; HealthcareMagic.com is one of finalist at TIE Canaan Entreprenurial Challange 2008

Here, more details on VentureWoods…  . Thanks to our dear users for their encouraging comments. Health is really happening.

==

TiE Canaan Entrepreneurial Challenge - Final Nominations

Published by Mukul on June 9, 2008 in Ecosystem and General.

(6 votes, average: 2.67 out of 5)

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Hi All,

It’s my pleasure to introduce this community to final eight entries of TiE Canaan Entrepreneurial Challenge 2008

We received around 140 plans.

Regards,
Mukul

VISIT healthcaremagic.com for Live Chat With Online Doctors !!

LIVE CHAT with a Qualified Doctor Regarding Any Medical Problem for
FREE at    www.healthcaremagic.com      9AM-9PM "IST(GMT + 5:30)".
Fully Confidential.

OR

You can call at  +91-80-41743045  and "Speak with a Doctor for FREE"
12 Noon to 6 PM  "IST(GMT + 5:30)", Monday to Friday.

Visit www.healthcaremagic.com

Regards,
Dr. Shruti Sharma

VISIT healthcaremagic.com for Live Chat With Online Doctors !!

LIVE CHAT with a Qualified Doctor Regarding Any Medical Problem for
FREE at    www.healthcaremagic.com      9AM-9PM "IST(GMT + 5:30)".
Fully Confidential.

OR

You can call at  +91-80-41743045  and "Speak with a Doctor for FREE"
12 Noon to 6 PM  "IST(GMT + 5:30)", Monday to Friday.

Visit www.healthcaremagic.com

Regards,
Dr. Shruti Sharma

VISIT healthcaremagic.com for Live Chat With Online Doctors !!

LIVE CHAT with a Qualified Doctor Regarding Any Medical Problem for
FREE at    www.healthcaremagic.com      9AM-9PM "IST(GMT + 5:30)".
Fully Confidential.

OR

You can call at  +91-80-41743045  and "Speak with a Doctor for FREE"
12 Noon to 6 PM  "IST(GMT + 5:30)", Monday to Friday.

Visit www.healthcaremagic.com

Regards,
Dr. Shruti Sharma

LIVE CHAT with a Qualified Doctor Regarding Any Medical Problem for
FREE at    www.healthcaremagic.com      9AM-9PM "IST(GMT + 5:30)".
Fully Confidential.

OR

You can call at  +91-80-41743045  and "Speak with a Doctor for FREE"
12 Noon to 6 PM  "IST(GMT + 5:30)", Monday to Friday.

Visit www.healthcaremagic.com

Regards,
Dr. Shruti Sharma

LIVE CHAT with a Qualified Doctor Regarding Any Medical Problem for
FREE at    www.healthcaremagic.com      9AM-9PM "IST(GMT + 5:30)".
Fully Confidential.

OR

You can call at  +91-80-41743045  and "Speak with a Doctor for FREE"
12 Noon to 6 PM  "IST(GMT + 5:30)", Monday to Friday.

Visit www.healthcaremagic.com

Regards,
Dr. Shruti Sharma

LIVE CHAT with a Qualified Doctor Regarding Any Medical Problem for
FREE at    www.healthcaremagic.com      9AM-9PM "IST(GMT + 5:30)".
Fully Confidential.

OR

You can call at  +91-80-41743045  and "Speak with a Doctor for FREE"
12 Noon to 6 PM  "IST(GMT + 5:30)", Monday to Friday.

Visit www.healthcaremagic.com

Regards,
Dr. Shruti Sharma