A growing number of startups classify themselves as “patient aggregators” on similar lines as “taxi aggregators”. While
the founders and the investors behind these projects would vouch for the benefits and value that these projects add to healthcare delivery, there’s are certainly some unanswered doubts and apprehensions.
AMPH Co 2022 students Dr. Karun Singla and Sudhakar Singh invited experts and industry leaders to share their opinions and insights on the rapidly growing and evolving “uberisation of healthcare” in the AMPH Discussion Circle hosted by the Max Institute of Healthcare Management.
Key insights from the discussion
- Uberisation of healthcare is happening rapidly and it is a potentially disruptive trend.
- There is a broad opinion that healthcare in India is broken in more than one way.
- There is an unmet need when it comes to the patient’s journey from the doctor’s consultation to discharge from the hospital, more so in cases where surgery is required.
- Patient aggregators like Pristyn Care, Glamyo, etc. claim to smoothen the patient’s journey.
- While taxi aggregators like Uber created value for both the customer and the provider, healthcare is a more complex ecosystem with multiple stakeholders (4Ps – patients, providers, payers and policymakers) and the processes might not be as linear as a cab-hailing service.
- Unlike other services, where you can feel, try and use/reject, healthcare is sensitive, emotive and leaves no scope for error lest it results in harm.
- While it may be worthwhile to aggregate pre and post-hospital services, how these aggregators deal with actual care delivery remains to be seen.
- Doctors and healthcare providers feel short-changed as the addition of a new stakeholder to the value chain takes away a big chunk of revenue from the hospitals and doctors with the aggregators retaining the lions’ share of the revenue.
- Another concern, which is significant, is the safety and confidentiality of patient data.
- Patient centricity remains the holy grail for the success of such ventures.
- As long as the focus is on “value” and not on “valuations”, we are in for exciting times ahead.
Moderated by the students of AMPH Co 2022, the Max Institute of Healthcare Management hosts the AMPH Discussion Circle on the third Sunday of every month on its LinkedIn page. Click here to go to this discussion thread.