Tring Tring! A doctor’s on your phone

MUMBAI, INDIA: Quality healthcare and second opinion of global doctors is no longer the privilege of the nouveau rich.

In an era, where patients are increasingly demanding consultancy services of experts practicing abroad, many young start-ups have developed e-platforms that fit the bill.

One such start-up is US-based GrandOpinion; a high-end technology enabled medical opinion and tele-consultation provider which recently made its India foray.

GrandOpinion has created a Web platform that facilitates live consultation between the doctors and specialists from anywhere across the world to domestic users via a dedicated messaging network on the mobile devices or video platforms. Besides, the platform is a centralized repository to manage healthcare data and information— which is stored on a cloud.

Ashish Dhar, Co-founder and Director, GrandOpinion, explained, "We have a single sign-on platform that enables to initiate, track and manage healthcare outcomes. All the stakeholders have system access which helps them to track and monitor the developments via a real time tracker. The system is tied up with the schedules for follow-ups and reporting tools."

Overall, more than 200 people who have availed the GrandOpinion platform so far, have reported savings anywhere from thousands to lakhs of rupees as most of the cases we received were prescribed an unnecessary surgery, improper guidance to the patient. And these were major ailments such as cancer, cardiology, pulmonary, neuro, nephron and ortho diseases, Dhar said.

Users, especially in remote areas where basic healthcare and good doctors are not accessible, GrandOpinion has prevented 20 percent of cardiac stent implants and organ transplants which were medically unnecessary; 30 percent surgical complications caused by surgical error and 40 percent of spinal fusion surgeries which not medically supported.

Going forward, GrandOpinion will develop an AI driven intelligent system that would help predict and deliver outcomes based on the data repository for faster and effective results.

Efforts are also on to tie-in developments in pathology and other sample sizes of research carried out globally which will help us knit it together for correct diagnosis and figure out the prognosis of the patient. We are on our path to develop a smart system for predictive analysis of the chronic conditions and ailments, Dhar concluded.