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Gone are the days when medical services were confined to a small room of a hospital. The COVID-19 outbreak has drastically transformed the healthcare sector overnight. We can witness clinics finding innovative ways to deliver healthcare services such as hospitals on wheels, autonomous vehicles to deliver COVID tests, etc.
Even before the onset of the present pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that around 1.7 million infections are hospital-acquired and have resulted in 99,000 deaths.
A survey estimates that 20% of the COVID-19 cases were hospital-acquired. So there is an increasing trend among the public to opt for remote healthcare to avoid the hospital environment for basic services such as routine general checkups.
This has made healthcare providers embrace technology to deliver safe and more convenient healthcare
The global telemedicine market is estimated to reach $171 billion by 2026, with a CAGR of 37.2%. The market has a huge growth potential during the forecast period due to lack of access to quality healthcare, rising consumer demand, patient acceptance, and increasing adoption of telemedicine. With just a smartphone, anyone can access quality health care and order medicines from anywhere.
In this e-book, we are going to look into one of the largest health tech companies in the world – Practo, and what it takes to become like it in the present world.
Different services provided by Practo
Practo is the world’s leading health tech company that aims to connect fragmented healthcare providers with millions of patients worldwide. It offers end-to-end solutions for all healthcare needs of a patient, from online medical consulting to medicine delivery.
Practo offers its services to three different stakeholders:
Patients
Practo allows patients to access various healthcare services through its seamlessly integrated platforms:
1. Practo Search
Practo has a comprehensive medical directory with information about 1,00,000+ doctors worldwide. It allows patients to search for doctors, hospitals, or laboratories at any given location. There are filters to refine the search based on experience, availability, and specialty.
2. Health Consultation
Practo identifies health problems by gathering symptom details and recommends doctors from 20+ specialties from 9000+ leading hospitals. It offers users both free and paid online consultation and ensures quick response to user’s queries.
3. Health Articles
A well-informed patient will always be aware of his/her health status when consulting a doctor. With an aim to create awareness on healthcare, Practo maintains a blog to give users important information by regularly posting on various health-related articles.
4. Order Medicines
One of the biggest challenges most patients face is access to medicines. Some medicines are hard to get, and patients often run from pharmacy to pharmacy searching for these medicines. Practo offers an exceptional medicine delivery service through a trusted network of verified pharmacies and medical stores worldwide. It even offers faster delivery options through in-house pharmacists and ensures reliable on-time home deliveries.
Doctors
Practo helps doctors easily manage daily appointments using their smartphones or computers. It helps them engage with their patients effectively and retain them by offering new discounts and health lessons. Practo app for doctors provides three services:
1. Practo Profile
Doctors can create and edit their profiles from anywhere. The doctor’s profile contains important information such as timings, fees, etc. Practo also allows doctors to keep track of users’ feedback and build credibility
2. Practo Consult
It enables doctors to connect with any patients at the comfort of their homes through video, phone, and chat.
3. Practo Health Feed
Through Practo health feed, doctors and medical experts can publish health articles and tips through an easy-to-use article editor and connect with millions of people worldwide
Clinics & Hospitals
Practo for clinics and hospitals constitutes two major SaaS products: Practo Ray and Practo Search
1. Practo Ray
Practo Ray helps hospitals and their staff efficiently handle daily hospital operations such as scheduling appointments, managing doctor databases, managing patient records, and their history and transactions.
2. Practo Search
Practo search software has powerful tools that help patients check about any hospitals or clinics. It also offers ad services for hospitals to get featured on the top
Business model and revenue model of Practo
The three main revenue streams of Practo include:
- Revenue from selling SaaS solutions to healthcare providers like hospitals and clinics. Practo provides services to all its stakeholders on a subscription-based system.
- Revenue from selling SaaS solutions to healthcare providers like hospitals and clinics. Practo provides services to all its stakeholders on a subscription-based system.
- Revenue from selling SaaS solutions to healthcare providers like hospitals and clinics. Practo provides services to all its stakeholders on a subscription-based system.
Importance of using software in providing medical services online
The advancements in technology have enabled hospitals and other healthcare facilities to enhance the delivery of healthcare services to their patients. Here are some top benefits of using software in providing medical services online –
Better Patient Experience
Integrating medical software into your healthcare delivery will offer a better user experience, especially for the patients who are tired of standing in long queues for booking an appointment. For example, medical software provides a platform for patients to type in their own medical information in the comfort of their homes and fix their first appointment.
A dedicated patient portal will allow you to send push notifications to patients via emails, text, or even a recorded voice mail message to remind them of appointments and other events. It helps patients easily access their order prescription refills, latest lab test reports, and upcoming appointments through the portal.
Medical software will also help save your staff time by reducing paperwork and making patient check-in faster. Also, it provides easy online payment options, and patients can pay directly through the software or app.
Manage Scheduling
From setting up new appointments to quickly rescheduling appointments, medical software will help doctors manage schedules on the go. When a patient cancels his/her appointment, the software automatically makes the slot available to another patient.
Another significant benefit of using medical software is to prevent burnout of doctors due to overworking. A software through an advanced scheduling system carefully manages the number of patients a doctor has to attend daily and helps manage the staff level issues
EHR
Medical software provides an EHR (Electronic Health Record) facility that allows doctors and nurses to understand the patient’s illness history at the click of a button. They no longer have to go through tonnes of reports to find the patient’s health information.
With an EHR, you will also be able to lock the files from unauthorized viewers. An EHR ensures effective communication with another doctor’s office and helps in the easy sharing of patient data when you make a referral
Billing
A medical software billing system helps doctors manage payment transactions, generate customized patient statements and detailed financial reports. The software will help your team automate the procedures involved in the transactions and track them throughout the revenue cycle. The software offers easy-to-understand invoices and reminders through push notifications to the patients if they are late with paying their bills
Which online channels can you use to provide different healthcare services?
Websites and Mobile Applications
If you are an existing healthcare provider planning to start an online healthcare delivery business, you need to be present on both website and mobile application platforms. It will help in:
- Immediate and remote access to quality health care.
- Efficient handling of cases at the time of emergency.
- Improved coordination between doctors and patients through a cloud-based online platform.
- Easy integration of health data with wearables.
The continuous evolution of technology has opened new opportunities such as Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Blockchain, and the Internet of Things. When these technologies are interwoven with mobile applications and website platforms, they can help revolutionize the medical industry to levels we never imagined before.
Video Conferencing
Traditionally, one has to travel to the doctor’s facility to get treated, or the doctor should travel to the patient’s location. The covid crisis has made it impossible to go out and meet doctors for minor illnesses, routing consultations, or follow-ups. Medical video conferencing helps by:
- Saving travel time and money as routine consultations and follow-ups do not require in-person checkups.
- Offering more reliable and effective communication between the doctor and patients.
- Breaking down the geographical barrier as anyone from any part of the world can access quality healthcare.
- Offering higher productivity and allowing doctors to help more patients.
- Offering hospitals and doctors a competitive advantage in the healthcare market.
Social Media
Healthcare and social media are a powerful combination as most adults use social media to learn and share health information today. Healthcare providers, institutions, and hospitals need to create engaging content that is informative, accurate, and updated frequently on their social media handles. Through social media, you can:
- Raise awareness among the public about new and emerging health concerns.
- Combat misinformation by providing correct facts.
- Provide instant crisis communication.
Must-have Features in a health-tech portal like Practo
Search
No medical service delivery platform would be complete without a search feature. The search function usually has location, doctor/clinic name, specialty, etc., in its input fields. You should provide other subfeatures such as autocompletion and suggestions similar to what you would see when you perform a search on Google.
My Account – Patient
A patient should be able to create and manage his/her account and log in using the email/social media accounts for convenience. The patient should be able to manage booking and appointment history, prescriptions, payment invoices, and medical reports.
My Account – Doctor
My account page should allow doctors to manage their specializations, experience, and other details that help patients choose them. Some of the notable features in my account page of doctor should be:
- Doctor’s bio, education, and experience.
- Awards and recognitions.
- Memberships and registrations.
- Insurance offered.
- Accepted payment options.
- Feedback and ratings that he/she received in the past
Find Doctor Availability
Patients should be able to check the availability of doctors in real time and book an appointment without ever talking to a receptionist. Before booking the appointment, there should be a form asking for the following details:
- Patient’s name, age, gender.
- Illness.
- Preferred timing and date.
- Contact information.
Video Conferencing
While developing a platform like Practo, you can integrate a virtual consultation feature. This is needed for both virtual consultations and Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM). If you can’t build your own video conferencing platform, you can integrate it with an external platform like Zoom.
Track your order
While developing a platform like Practo, you can integrate a virtual consultation feature. This is needed for both virtual consultations and Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM). If you can’t build your own video conferencing platform, you can integrate it with an external platform like Zoom.
How you can be the next Practo
Even though you now know everything required to start an online healthcare delivery business like Practo, you simply can’t start one instantly. There is a lot of planning and analysis involved. You need to identify the problems that the current big players in the industry are facing in your target market. Define your purpose by offering a solution to those problems. This will help you to stand apart from your competitors
Now that you have your purpose defined, you should prepare a detailed document regarding the technical specifications required to develop your online platform. Always start with developing the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) first without wasting a lot of time and money on the bells and whistles. You have two options – you can either hire your own in-house team to develop your platform or choose the simpler way of hiring a third-party vendor to do the same in less time and money
More importantly, integrate good delivery management software with your platform to manage the delivery of your medicines and health products. Tookan, an online delivery management software, has all the necessary tools tailored for your online healthcare delivery business. It has advanced features like automatic scheduling for easy delivery management, optimized routing for faster deliveries, and real-time tracking of order status that enhances the overall customer experience.
Summary
The rise of smartphones and tablets is an important development in the healthcare industry. Mobile apps, particularly online health care service delivery apps that provide telemedicine features, have made people’s lives easier as they offer support from busy health care professionals from the comfort of home. Through online platforms, doctors and nurses can now communicate better with the patient about the medication, diagnosis, and follow-up process. It has made patient monitoring very easy, thus decreasing the number of readmissions. Due to these advantages, online health care service delivery is now a growing trend with huge revenue potential. It would be wise to reap the benefits of this model in the present scenario (brought by the pandemic) by recreating a successful business like Practo.
Practo has been dominating the online healthcare market due to the various advanced features it provides for improved user convenience. That’s how it has scaled to various cities worldwide, hiring around 100,000+ medical practitioners and serving millions of customers across the world. To become like Practo, you should be focusing mainly on the quality of the service and customer satisfaction. There is nothing that makes customers happy other than on-time deliveries. By hiring third-party delivery management software like Tookan, you can offer exceptional service and faster on-time deliveries. This will enhance the user experience and satisfaction. So what are you waiting for? Talk to a Tookan expert right away.
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