Working closely with the diagnostics industry, Livehealth creates intelligent reports for its patients and over the next few years, aims to become a health analytics company…

Abhimanyu Bhosale and Mukund Malani’s final year graduation project involved direct data collection from medical devices and storing them on the cloud. What was just a research project led them to a business idea when they realized that there was a glaring gap in the US $3 billion Indian diagnostics market; the medical records of every chronic patient who underwent routine checkups were not being monitored or logged properly. Hence was born Livehealth, a tool which creates intelligent reports and delivers medical records to patients directly on their phone. “A radiologist spends close to 80 to 90 per cent of his/her time to read through medical records every day. To bring efficiency in such tasks is where we feel diagnostics will be a opportunistic platform to create a digital revolution,” states Bhosale, co-founder and CEO.

The company was founded in November 2013 with an aim of redefining healthcare delivery using technology to create user experience and efficiency in the entire process. It works closely with the diagnostics industry, which is usually heavily dependent on technology.  From its pilot customer, Health Accurate Diagnostics of Pune, which came on board in July 2014, it currently has around 210 centers across the country.  “We are signing contracts for 15 years and have a retention rate of 98 per cent,” states the CEO. This has helped the company sustain its customers and they are using the Livehealth platform to scale up instead of switching on to the next available platform.

LiveHealth’s management solution is built to help clients in the diagnostics and healthcare space automate processes, visualize and analyse data and create better connect with their customers.

In the long run, Livehealth aims to become a data company where it gets all the information, and eventually start offering smart insights. “We plan to use the data for health analytics in future and offer insights which will help both patients and diagnostics companies,” says he. The company plans to launch the beta phase of analytics this year.

The process
LivHealth’s management solution is built to help clients in the diagnostics and healthcare space automate processes, visualize and analyse data and create better connect with their customers. While it began operations in Pune, it entered the Mumbai and Bengaluru markets in January this year, and has centers in 18 cities. “In fact, we also cater to international markets such as Middle East, Malaysia and Singapore,” states Bhosale.

Today, given that 90 per cent of the diagnostics industry is fragmented, the founders claim to be doing maximum volumes in terms of business. “The 200 centers that we work with have a larger volume than the entire metropolis chain. Eventually, we will help the entire diagnostics industry get organised and have a standard process in place to manage reports, data and customers,” says he.

LiveHealth’s SaaS-based model operates on a price range of Rs. 999 to Rs 10,000 per month, based on client requirements and the number of centers. In turn, LiveHealth earns revenues on these transactions by taking a percentage of the fee into its business.

Recently, the company launched a mobile app – Livehealth Doc for Android and iOS platforms, which can help generate reports and deliver it to the patients directly, right from the app. So far, the app has recorded more than 875 downloads whereas the platform churns 20,000 page views and 3,200 monthly active visits of which 2,300 are unique visitors. On the healthcare providers’ front, LiveHealth has witnessed 1, 000 MAU (monthly active users) and a remarkable 110,000 page views per month.

Challenges

Doctors do prefer to see printed documents. However, the company aims to make the platform experience smooth enough to facilitate that transition. In fact, Bhosale says that more than 35 per cent of the doctors are already using the digital platform on a daily basis to approve and authorize reports. To ease this further, the company is also working on a non-obstructive platform for the physician. “They can give the report when the patient comes for the visit without doing much data entry or management of the platform,” states he. However, he agrees that the onboarding time for doctors is huge.

Another challenge that the company faces is on the quality of the onboarding of its clients. It is planning to raise the next round of funding to scale and get over this challenge. What this means is that lot of systems in the laboratories are not automated and standardized. “First we have to tell them the importance of standardization. Then, there should be a process. A lot of times, bills are generated on paper. If the point of sale is not digitised, the rest is tough,” states Bhosale.

Step into the future
Last October, the company raised its first round of angel funding of US $3,00,000 from healthcare veterans, Dr. Rajaram Samant, CEO of Akumentis Healthcare, and Dr. Pramod Dhembare, founder and MD, Fidelity Diagnostics. This fund is being used to stabilize the business and start scaling the platform. The company aims to reach a milestone of around 500 centers by this year end and also plans to raise further investments in October this year which it will utilize to go pan India. The goal is to be in more than 50 to 60 cities across the country in the next one year.

In the long run, it wants to work with doctors as well. “As a platform we are stable and have proved it. We want to now venture into the hospital space where patient care will be personalized,” says he on a concluding note.

Snapshot

LiveHealth

Founders: Abhimanyu Bhosale and Mukund Malani

Year: 2013

Concept: A management solution built to automate processes, analyse data and improve customer connect

Investors: Dr. Rajaram Samant (Akumentis Healthcare) and Dr. Pramod Dhembare (Fidelity Diagnostics).