Medical advice is now within reach for populations that were once overlooked. Emmanuel Prado, CEO of Health2i, tells us about the mobile app that is making it all possible.
Every industry is experiencing a wave of digitisation, including healthcare, which has seen the emergence of m-Health. Could you share with us a few words on the landscape in this region?
Indeed, this is a transformation that we championed when we started to operate back in 2010. Since then, the market changed a lot. We have seen the emergence of several new players in four key areas:
- Teleconsultation;
- E-commerce and delivery of medicine mainly in Indonesia;
- Facilitation of medical tourism, which is by definition a more regional business;
- Booking platforms and directories of GP, specialists and laboratories.
Can you tell us about Doctor Gratis and the story behind this mobile application?
Doctor Gratis was devised by a group of general practitioners in Indonesia. They wanted to serve a noble cause: providing access to basic medical advice to populations located in remote areas or facing challenges to connect and receive consultations from physicians.
At that time, they were already receiving requests from acquaintances by SMS. When the technology and the telecom infrastructure were mature enough to offer a more comprehensive service, we decided to launch a mobile application, Doctor Gratis, in order to offer our service to more people.
What were the key issues when designing and launching Doctor Gratis and how did you deal with those?
We faced several challenges. The first one was to clearly define and understand the problem we wanted to address in order to develop an experience in line with the expectations of our targeted users. We solved this challenge by carefully on-boarding the team who made it happen.
The next one was to quickly be able to operate on a large scale, serve hundreds of thousands of patients and be equipped to deliver more than one million medical consultations online.
Lastly, mobile health was very new when we started. We had to figure out the right processes and methodologies in order to grow with solid foundations. We gained much expertise in a relatively short period of time.
What are the next steps for Health2i?
First thing first, we are committed to making a meaningful difference in the lives of our users. Our priority is to listen to our users very carefully because we care and want to improve constantly our product.
We’re also discussing with ambitious partners, corporations and government bodies, and we may collaborate with them to tackle strategic issues related to public health.
Interview with Emmanuel Prado, CEO, Health2i
Health2i is a pioneer in mobile health in emerging markets. Find out more about Health2i here.
Published in FOCUS Magazine — Issue #3 2017 “In the Pink of Health”
