Healthcare startups digitizing medical services in India

Industry 4.0 technologies like Data Science, AI, Machine Learning, and Big Data are causing disruption across various sectors including healthcare. As it is being utilized all around the globe, it promises to streamline various functions and bring about a variety of innovative solutions for the industry. Although at a nascent stage in the Indian healthcare sector, a slew of startups is bringing innovative solutions with the help of these technologies to create high impact.

Here are some of the firms that are digitizing medical services in India:

Medikabazaar

Medikabazaar is a pioneering B2B online marketplace for medical equipment and supplies in India. The platform provides buyers and sellers with a single point of purchase to buy medical equipment and supplies online at reasonable prices. The Mumbai-based company was founded by Vivek Tiwari in 2015, with the aim to bridge the gap between healthcare providers and product suppliers to make quality healthcare products more accessible. Additionally, the company has implemented its new-age proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tool, which is able to report accurate stock projections to medical establishments. In this way, these establishments are able to save up to 30 per cent in their procurement cost, helping them to make healthcare affordable and within reach for those in need.

Lifetron Innov Equipments

Started in 2016 by Anaesthesiologist Dr Kiran Kanthi, the Hubli-based medtech startup provides low-cost, portable and bed-side neonatal phototherapy units that can be deployed in rural and remote healthcare setups. Lifetron's product comes with a battery backup and has undergone several clinical trials at Hubli and Kiran's nursing home.

Mediklik

Raipur-based Mediklik provides preventive healthcare packages and primary care services. Founded by former-pharmacist Vikram Aditya in 2017, Mediklik is an online cloud-based patient engagement platform and offers healthcare packages that are tailored by medical experts. The platform offers details of preventive lifestyle diseases including symptoms and medicines. Every information page shows a list of healthcare providers in the vicinity, along with experts available for online consultation. Once a user registers – registrations are free – they are encouraged to take a free visit from the Mediklik team for assessment of their family health.

MeraPatient

MeraPatient was founded by Manish Mehta, a chartered accountant, and Alok Khandelwal, a journalist, in 2017 to solve the problem of healthcare connectivity. The Jaipur-based startup aggregates offline pharmacies and diagnostic labs. With the help of the app, which uses the GPS tracker, a user can search pharma stores and diagnostic labs in a 5 km radius. They can then upload their prescription and even view offers from pharma stores and labs on medicines or book appointment for prescribed tests.

DRiefcase

Founded in 2016, DRiefcase digitises personal health records and provides patients with single-point, easy-to-use access to their medical data through a mobile app. The records are stored securely, available instantly (you can retrieve any document in just 10 seconds), and can be accessed from anywhere. Most importantly, patients can choose the data they want to share with doctors, clinics, hospitals, caregivers, and others in the ecosystem. Essentially, DRiefcase puts patients in control of their and their families’ health records.

Onward Health

Using predictive analytics and machine learning, this Onward Health startup is building a portfolio of diagnostic tools in the form of classifiers and analytical tools. These tools help pathologists diagnose more cases every day by providing deeper, more accurate insights from available samples. In addition, Onward Health is leveraging computer vision techniques and ML algorithms to offer tools in computational pathology and mammography.