A comparative study of healthcare practice management platforms in India

Abstract

The Indian healthcare industry was estimated to be around $80 billion in 2014. This number is expected to double in the next three years1 . Due to an exponential increase in smartphone and internet penetration, the e-healthcare industry is also witnessing rapid growth. Despite the impressive improvement in healthcare sector in the past decade, the number of registered allopathic doctors in India is 9,18,8892 . Although the healthcare needs of the vast population are served by a variety of players – government agencies, professionals and non-professionals, the primary source for medical advice and treatment has traditionally been the family doctor. However, for specific medical problems, the majority of people still face challenges in finding suitable doctors. There are a variety of branded hospitals in the major cities but the enormous consulting fees, long waiting times, and lack of personalized care cause problems for patients visiting these hospitals. Moreover, they still do not have information about the doctors they will be consulting in these branded hospitals. Since there is tremendous dependency on recommendations and geographical proximity while deciding on a doctor, there is a large information gap about the doctor. The fragmented nature of the industry and tremendous knowledge asymmetry of information between a patient and a doctor constantly hinders people from finding the right doctors. On the other side, doctors also face challenges in terms of information management (such as medical history, appointments, and patient database), establishing credibility, and managing back-end operations. Healthcare practice management platforms such as Practo, Qikwell and HelpingDoc are now serving as aggregators and providers of healthcare technology solutions to deal with the information and operations management problems of patients and doctors. They are able to provide IT solutions to consumers and doctors for various healthcare services such as doctor discovery, booking appointments, and practice management. The objective of this project is to study how these healthcare practice management platforms are evolving their business models to achieve success in this sector. This will involve conducting a comparative study of the business models of healthcare practice management platforms.