Practo’s hospital management system, Insta on Wednesday announced its transition to SaaS model to drive more value, efficiency, flexibility and scalability for its partner clinics and hospitals.
According to a press statement, the development, part of the company’s holistic growth and profitability strategy, is expected to impact the topline positively, with a 25 percent increase in healthcare centres. The company claims that it is aiming to improve its integration, enabling timely upgrades and greater ease of use, at 4x lesser costs as compared to conventional IT infrastructures.
“Insta’s ambitious expansion path includes going deeper into the Middle East and Indian markets by providing for local needs. It will also enable hospitals to improve operational efficiency by 20-25% with minimal revenue leakage,” it stated on Wednesday.
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The company claims that post-acquisition in 2015 by Practo, Insta has grown 368 percent in terms of the number of hospitals and clinics using the service and is clocking a 25-30 percent revenue growth year-on-year, over the last two to three years. Due to consistent on-demand service and highly automated systems, the retention rate for the business has been 92 percent – one of the highest in the industry, it claims.
Currently, Insta is associated with hospitals like Apollo Health and Lifestyle, Ovum, Bansal, Omni Hospitals in India and Emirates Healthcare, Right Health, Etihad Airways Medical Centre, VPS- Lifeline, VPS-Lifecare, Valiant Clinic in UAE amongst others.
“We remain committed to our goal of balancing growth with profitability. While our consumer business continues to grow, our B2B business is turning profitable. This transition to SaaS is a strategic step in that direction. It helps us anticipate revenues, shorten sales lifecycle, and deepen integration, thus, creating a more predictable ecosystem for both growth and profitability. We are the leaders in the Middle East market and will continue to invest in that market, to grow both market and revenue share. The India market is ripe for SaaS; it provides much-needed agility that healthcare players are looking for, thus, giving us the confidence of further expansion, in a shorter period of time,” Abhinav Lal, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Practo said in a statement.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Vikas Kumar, CEO, Insta, said that SaaS-based cloud solutions have many advantages over traditional systems, such as lower costs, better data security and interoperability, and easier access to information and data sharing.
On specifics and new changes in the HIMS, Lal told Financial Express.com: “The tech and IT in India has been challenging because of the volume and tech will help. The first pillar- Healthcare has not been patient-centric, it has been very mechanical…But digital makes patients more involved. Second- ABDM- ABDM has been the UPI moment in healthcare through convenience…ABHA individuals have been quick to come on board and the ecosystem has also seen active engagement…High adoption countries also happen to be high adopters of technology…These three macro trends are telling us that we can expect a change in the rate of adoption of technology…Through Insta we are targeting these areas and it is not just a transactional relationship with partners.”
Meanwhile, Kumar told Financial Express.com that Insta is keen on helping healthcare providers make more informed decisions.
“There are two sides, one is consumer-facing and the other is a hospital. Surgeries are bullish (10B market). B2B business is where Insta comes from…Can’t provide a good tech experience for consumers without having developers more digital…Practo’s DNA is provider friendly and strives to equip that space with better technology. Leaving the developed countries market aside, there is a large no of emerging economies (India) and these markets have good potential…building in India for the world…and it allows hospitals to use tech to help improve patient experience,” Lal told Financial Express.com while talking about how to focus on mid-markets when it comes to digitising healthcare.
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While, Kumar, CEO, Insta added that the market in India (a mid-market) is untapped and there’s no horizontal player (A-Z services). “Policies, players and readiness are some factors to help. Practo’s focus is on such markets,” he told Financial Express.com.
According to the company, like many other industries, Covid-19 has put a spotlight on the need for the adoption of healthcare systems to SaaS-based models. Moreover, the cloud computing market in healthcare is estimated to reach $51.9 billion by 2024.