Quality of spoken English worries BPOs

DDinesh B is a marketing executive with a top FMCG company whose work involves extensive travel and driving for long hours within the city. For two months now, he has been suffering from an acute back pain but has not found time to visit an orthopaedic. Mala, a housewife, who recently moved to Bangalore, has been looking for a good paediatrician near her suburban neighbourhood and needs help in her search. Chandan, a factory worker in a village near Hosur, had been seeing a doctor in Bangalore for a skin disease but gave up halfway as it became exceedingly difficult for him to travel all the way for the follow-ups.

Time constraints, lack of organised information about doctors and mobility are among several other factors that have given birth to ?e-clinics?? a concept that is quickly gaining acceptance in India. Scores of internet-based platforms are now springing up, which work to connect doctors and patients round the clock through live chats, electronically maintained health records, and open forum discussions on symptoms. These sites not only help locate an authenticated doctor, but also fix appointments, and help store medical reports and scans online to be accessed by a doctor. They will not just direct a patient to his closest doctor, but also connect him to an international specialist for a second opinion.

One such site, which is currently generating 4.5 million visitors per month, is Bangalore-based Healthcaremagic.com. Founded three years ago, the site currently has 6,000 registered doctors across the globe in over 19 countries, and has answered over 6,20,000 health queries through its paid services. It also serves 14 corporate clients, and plans to get two companies on board every month. ?Most of the people who visit us are looking for a doctor to consult about something that is not exceedingly worrisome, like a backache, a knee pain or a sudden fever. These are addressed through our ask-a-doctor service, which is a live chat with a general physician (GP). The more serious cases are for our specialist opinion service, in which we connect patients to specialists across the globe for second opinions,? says Kunal Sahu, co-founder, Rx HealthCare Magic. Another site, Delhi-based TopDoctorsOnline.com was started two years ago with the objective of providing free access to doctors for rural patients through NGOs. The company provides similar services to urban patients, which is fee based, in addition to medico-legal consultancy services. It has close to 10,000 doctors in its network and generates over 30,000 hits a month.

Ask4healthcare.com, which started in 2009 with over 1,000 doctors in its network, locates closest doctors, and helps fix appointments across the country, in addition to online consultancy services. It also has discount tie-ups with organisations such as Fortis Hospitals. ?There is a clear consumer need, and this space is apt for a consumer?internet play. It is an unstructured segment with lakhs of small to medium players, and with a potential billion-plus consumers and a million-plus providers, this is a highly scalable business,? says Rahul Kasliwal, an IIT graduate who co-founded Ask4healthcare. The site generates traffic close to 6,000 patient visits, and is growing at 30% month-on-month.

Several other sites such as WebMD.com, RevolutionHealth.com, Askmedicaldoctor.com, Medicalfaq.net, Healthexpertadvice.org also provide similar services. A plethora of these sites also operate in the area of ayurveda, homeopathy, medical tourism and fitness information.

Some of the services on these sites, such as the open forum discussions on symptoms posted by individuals, are free, whereas private chats with GPs and specialists can range anywhere from R200 to R2,000. Apart from the fee that the sites charge as a percentage of the doctor?s fee, corporate clients, advertising, retailing and annual subscription by hospitals on the networks also help monetise these businesses.

The investor interest that e-health has been generating is testimony to its growing popularity. HealthCare Magic raised funds close to $2.5 million from early-stage fund Accel Partners in 2009, its second year of operations. It managed to break even six months ago and is now a profitable company. TopDoctorsOnline.com is looking to raise $2 million, and expects to break even in 18 months. Ask4health.com is also in talks with the VC community and plans to raise $2 million. ?We have been talking to several individuals and investors and the VC interest has been very encouraging. The next three years are very crucial for us and we have plans to scale up, which should happen before 2015. This is a great platform for e-commerce and we also sell insurance and healthcare products? says Bharat Bhardwaj, chief executive officer, Medisurge Technologies, the parent company of TopDoctorsOnline.com.

ExpertSpeak

Kunal Sinha,

co-founder, Rx HealthCare Magic

In the past six months, our traffic has grown by about 2 million. We have seen our base of repeat users growing as well, and that is a good sign of the trust we are building among our customers

Bharat Bhardwaj,

chief executive officer, Medisurge Technologies (TopDoctorsOnline.com.)

We have plans to scale up nationally over the next three years and we will be looking at an investment of $2 million for that. The response from investors has been extremely encouraging

Rahul Kasliwal,

co-founder, eChikitsa Informatics Pvt Ltd (Ask4healthcare.com)

There is a clear consumer need, and this space is apt for a consumer-internet play. With a potential billion-plus consumers and a million-plus providers, this is a highly scalable business