As rightly it is being said, “Good health leads to good brain and good brains leads to good life.” And we all know how important it is to stay healthy and stay fit. In this era of being busy and running after other luxuries, we often forget what it is to stay in good shape. We over tire our bodies, extend them beyond their limits and often which leads to its malfunctioning. Our bodies are like the engines that are ready to drive you all way around and over usage often leads to its breakdown.
People often are so busy that they forget the illness of their bodies and keep on working on their routines. They usually don’t have time to take a doctor’s appointment and see them on their illness. In this fast moving word, we often fail to act that fast when it comes to sickness of our bodies.
It’s been a long way to practise the older traditions of standing in a line or waiting for our number to be called upon to see the doctor. With the world moving over to online, it is the time that we realise the real power of an internet. So we decided to interview, one of the leading, yet powerful startup, that puts the health of their customers to their top most priority.
The birth of ihealthkonnect:
ihealthkonnect was founded by Manisha Soin, who brings over a decade of work experience, strategy and execution skills to the team.
This startup was born out of passion to help patients in underserved areas, get access to quality and reliable healthcare, information and advice.
The idea came up when the uncle of the founder passed on, in a span of 6 months due to an error in assessment of spread of prostate cancer.
That’s when the founder Manisha Soin realised that there were lacunae which existed and there was no source or reliable platform offering curating, reliable and in time healthcare information and advice.
ihealthkonnect Mobile app was launched on both android and iOS in April this year.
The startup:
ihealthkonnect is a medical advisory, connecting patients to the best doctors and hospitals for their specific medical problems. Many renowned Hospitals and healthcare professionals are linked up with this startup that is leaving no stones unturned to give what is best for the patients concentrating on not only quality advice but the best.
Due to concentration of Healthcare in urban clusters, users in tier 1 and tier 2 cities often have no access to good doctors and specialists and often do not know what to do, when a loved one is diagnosed with a serious medical problem. Running from pillar to post, it takes medical patients many days to travel to the nearest medical hub and look at treatment options. The people at ihealthkonnect are trying to fill the lacunae which exists in the healthcare ecosystem by providing super specialist consultation and connecting medical patients to the best doctors and hospitals for their medical problems.
In Team apart from Manisha, Dinesh, Saurabh and Sumit, the tech team of ihealthkonnect. Trio have over 5 years of work experience in mobile app development.
Problems faced so far:
On one hand, there is no easy way to get objective information as of now, on service provider availability, quality and to compare pricing for healthcare procedures. These issues are magnified manifold for low-income populations who have almost no access to information, education, connections and financial reserves.
Although there are many users of the internet and almost every second person relies on it, but the common knowledge and as what one might say, general awareness and usability is not quite being explored in India. Users generally fail to rely on these facilities and often do not understand what we are providing them.
On the supply side of the market, health care service providers esp super speciality hospitals are often struggling with capacity utilisation to manage their cash flow and to achieve profitability. Hospitals often set up huge marketing departments to aid capacity utilization which is often an expensive proposition. This presents a classic patient-to-healthcare service provider, match-making market opportunity.
The Offerings and Services:
ihealthkonnect offers the following services to its users,
- Free Super-Specialist Consultation, which is quite difficult for users to get on their own and for which they usually travel miles to a super specialty hospital to avail the same at the organisation.
- Comparative Estimates on cost of treatment if desired from different hospitals
- Ability to upload, carry and view Medical Records and Bills on the go
- Travel Assistance: Using Travel assistance, link on our mobile app and website patients can book air tickets, train tickets and budget stays as they plan their travel for their surgeries and medical procedures.
- Daily Health Tips and Advice: The app and website provides the fresh and Healthy tips and advice for staying in shape and order.
- Empowers users to rate-review doctors, hospitals and their medical experience.
Region covered so far:
Currently they provide assistance to patients in North India but we plan to expand operations to west and then east regions only and plan to expand over a large region soon.