Startup-Circle: How HealthPlix is bringing technology to the heart of healthcare

HealthPlix is an innovative Health-Tech company, bringing technology to the heart of healthcare – doctors. Using assistive AI-powered EMR software, HealthPlix empowers doctors to drive better health outcomes for their patients by providing clinical decision support at the point of care.

Today, we have  10000+ doctors across 16 specialties who are using the HealthPlix EMR software used by doctors to digitise "care" in Indian healthcare.

At CIOL, we talked to Prashant Parmar, Head Sales (Doctor Growth), HealthPlix Technologies, He shared his views on the need for digitising healthcare to ensure access for all (across remote parts of the country). He talked about his startup journey and also, and he speaks about the growth plans he has for HealthPlix.

Tell us about HealthPlix Technologies and your offerings. Tell us about the team.

HealthPlix is an innovative Health-Tech company, bringing technology to the heart of healthcare – doctors. Using assistive AI-powered EMR software, we empower doctors to drive better health outcomes for their patients by providing clinical decision support at the point of care and saving their time by taking better-informed decisions.

Today, we have  10000+ doctors across 16 specialties who are using the HealthPlix EMR software used by doctors to digitise "care" in Indian healthcare.

Our offerings:

Electronic Medical Records (EMR) – It provides one-click access to the medical history of patients and generates prescriptions in less than 30 seconds. All prescriptions are MCI compliant and can be generated in 14 regional languages to help doctors attend to more patients from different parts of the country. HealthPlix also has a mobile version of its AI-powered EMR. Available on all Android and iOS devices, HealthPlix “EMR on Mobile” can be accessed through any smartphone, enabling real-time access to patients' information from anywhere, at any time.HealthPlix EMR consists of the following features –

• Doctor Insight Dashboard (ROBIN) – An analytical software that sits on the EMR. With the help of this feature, doctors can now access the all-new, one-click in-clinic Doctor Insights Dashboard that aims to give back the doctors’ information on what is happening in their clinic over time.
• Prescription Summary Dashboard – A research-oriented platform that helps deep dive into a patient’s medical history. With a user-friendly interface, the dashboard provides an overview of complete practice with an aggregated analysis of prescriptions, allowing doctors to elevate their engagement with patients. Backed with analytics capabilities it allows doctors to find areas of improvement to drive better patient outcomes.
• Drug-to-Drug Interaction (DDI) - An intuitive feature that sits on the HealthPlix EMR to help doctors recall molecule-to-molecule interactions at the time of care. The suggestive feature is designed for doctors in India and targeted to decrease the time taken to write a prescription.

Our leadership teams comprise of –

• Sandeep Gudibanda, CEO, HealthPlix Technologies
• Chaitanya Raju, Chief of AI at HealthPlix Technologies
• Gaurav Mathur, Head of Engineering, HealthPlix Technologies
• Subhadeep Mondal, Vice President – Product, HealthPlix Technologies
• Burhanuddin Pithawala, Head of Growth Marketing, HealthPlix Technologies
• Prashant Parmar, Head Sales (Doctor Growth), HealthPlix Technologies
• Manpreet Singh, Head of Commerce, HealthPlix Technologies

What are the drivers/market trends that are shaping the health tech landscape in 2022?

Even before COVID-19 hit us, the world and developing countries like India were dealing with the fight of chronic diseases. The rise in chronic diseases has put the spotlight on health-tech startups. With the onslaught of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and startups solving chronic diseases like Diabetes is one of the best examples on how technology in healthcare can do wonders.

A basic glucometer is a great case study for anyone to learn on how technology has entered our homes. It is rebalancing the scales of patient care at hospital versus at home. With technology solving for both sides of a coin, health-tech startups have come a long way in transforming the landscape of healthcare like never before.

India’s healthcare ecosystem is going through a paradigm shift. While Covid-19 exposed the flaws in our healthcare system, technology is enabling care delivery by bridging the current access gaps in terms of infrastructure and services. Some of the market trends we are observing are

• Usage of frontier techs like AI/ML - Artificial intelligence and machine learning are increasingly being used in Indian healthcare settings. According to research, deep learning algorithms help clinicians forecast patients' prognosis and possible health By collecting and analysing a variety of patient vitals, cutting-edge digital technologies like AI and ML can also aid in illness prevention and early detection. For example - our AI-powered EMR is built with super capabilities like prescription summary dashboard is a one-click deep dive analysis tool for doctors making patient care more efficient
• Mobility & Digital Health Applications – There is a rise in digital health applications specifically within doctor and clinical settings. Most doctors carry tablets with them everywhere they go and can access a patient’s medical record with a higher degree of convenience. Clinical digital applications are being designed to improve patient outcomes, especially in remote health instances. Doctors also utilize modern mobile technology to develop better relationships with their patients and provide all the information that they need in an easy-to-read way.
• Smart wearables – Advancement of smart wearables has become an important innovation in healthcare In a recent survey it was found that 39% of users had a smartwatch. Thus, being able to monitor patient's status remotely or enabling patients to monitor their own status throughout the day provides physicians with extremely valuable data points
• Telemedicine – All healthcare settings are now using telemedicine to provide more value-based care, which reduces costs, increases revenue, and improves patient satisfaction. The Indian Telemedicine Market is expected to grow at around 22% over the next few years and is a signal of growth, especially for developing economies like India. Many pharma and healthcare companies and insurance payors are using telemedicine and other digital health platforms to enhance growth, accelerated by the pandemic.

In essence, healthcare-focused organisations are getting drawn to new technologies to provide access to quality and affordable healthcare to all.  The emergence of health technology is forging a new future with better patient outcomes, lower medical expenses, and more personalised care delivery.

How is HealthPlix tapping these market trends for growth?

We, at HealthPlix, are passionate about serving the doctor community by leveraging cutting-edge technologies like AI/ML and making the doctor’s practice more efficient, scalable, and reliable.

We believe that by providing the best tech to doctors and physicians, we can assist them to provide the best care for their patients. The vision is to improve healthcare outcomes for all, by improving the quality of healthcare delivery with superlative assistive tech.

Our strategy to tap the latest market trends is three-fold:

As pioneers in digitization of healthcare, we are moving toward our vision of being the “Android of Healthcare” by building an intelligent platform that allows ecosystem players to participate and co-create the future

Continue developing products and services powered by frontier technologies like AI. Today many capabilities developed on our HealthPlix EMR are powered by AI. Ex: We recently launched an interaction feature to assist doctors. DDI is an intuitive feature that sits on the HealthPlix EMR to help doctors recall molecule-to-molecule interactions. The AI-first and suggestive feature is designed for doctors in India and targeted to decrease the time taken to write a prescription.

Building mobile solutions like MOBILE EMR for doctors and their staff, enabling them to serve patients throughout their treatment journey - from home to clinic.

How do you see the company in the future ahead? What changes for HealthPlix?

Our vision is to win doctors’ confidence with digital tools that eliminate time-consuming tasks, deliver outstanding patient care, shorten wait times, and elevate the in-clinic experience.  We will continue to build products that are doctor-first and can help bridge the healthcare gap that currently exists in major parts of the country.

In line with our overarching vision, our priorities include:

• Building advanced capabilities on the EMR to empower doctors with valuable features like DDI (Drug to Drug Interaction)
• Our platform will soon be able to integrate with various complementary products from the ecosystem, to further support the digitization of healthcare
• Facilitate the creation of Health ID’s alongside ABDM of the government

How has your revenue grown with the brand evolving during the pandemic?

We have had strong growth for the year 2021 and 2022 continues to be the year of reckoning for the company. Our revenue has grown by 2.5x during 2021 and is on the path to witnessing it grow to 3x by end of 2022

What has 2021 changed for you? How are things now?

Compared to 2020, our monthly active user base increased by 3x in 2021 alone. It is a clear indication of the increasing adoption of technology in the sector and I believe that platforms like ours can bring in true digitization to the ecosystem.

Secondly, today we cater to close to 2.5 percent of India’s patient population compared to 1 percent back in 2021. Lastly, we recently achieved the milestone of 20 million patients treated on the EMR platform highlighting the fact doctors are using the platform to drive better health outcomes for patients.

What are your growth priorities for 2022

Our growth continues to be robust due to a balanced strategy of continuing to put Doctor First in our values and focusing on product development in solving their challenges. All our recent launches in the past 9 months reflect our product innovation strategy that gives us a competitive edge and put us in a leadership position.

Some of our priorities include

• Building specialty focussed modules are going to be a big focus as HealthPlix EMR is the most trusted doctor brand in the country today. We listen to doctors’ feedback regularly and are geared up to co-create the Future of EMR with them
• Our platform will be soon open to the ecosystem players to come, partner, and build products. We are just an API integration away for any company to partner with us and build something valuable for the ecosystem
• Facilitate creation of Health ID’s alongside Govt’s mission of ABDM

Post-pandemic, there is a huge demand for digital tools. To keep up with the growing adoption of digital tools in the healthcare industry, we are also expanding our teams across product, sales, and support. We are also improving our capacity to serve specific specialties and new product lines by hiring across functions like marketing, analytics, product, and design to meet the demand.

Funding

HealthPlix has raised $13.5 million in our most recent investment round as part of Series B funding, which was headed by Lightspeed Ventures and included existing investors like JSW Ventures, Kalaari Capital, and Chiratae Ventures, to name a few.