If shuttered shops, sinking graphs and televised AGMs narrate the tale of sagging business in Covid-times, here's a tale of a business that has grown multi-fold.
With doctors and nurses achieving the cult-status of "Covid-warrior", healthcare apps such as Practo too have jumped the bandwagon reaping the benefits of changing consumer behaviour. The business at Practo has evolved to becoming India's largest tele-medicine app with subscribers soaring to eighteen crores.
The lockdown and shutdowns have only shifted the spotlight to digital. Digital not only helps patients and businesses but could help save the country as much as $10 billion in 2025 according to a McKinsey report. The benefits would hold only if tele-medicine replaced 30-40% of in-person outpatient consultations. Apps such as Practo are certainly helping push India towards this objective.
For those unaware, over 18 crore patients across 15 countries have connected with over 1 lakh+ verified healthcare providers through the Practo interface. Their recently released quarterly health insights report (based on data from five crore subscribers) and the need to understand its technology landscape forms the basis of this mail-conversation with Dr Alexander Kuruvilla, the Chief Health Strategy officer at Practo.
Slide to read insights and statistics from Practo and Dr Kuruvilla.
Text: Sairaj Iyer for Sify.com
Images: With kind courtesy of Practo and respective agencies