YosCare.in September 7, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Healthcare, Technology , trackbackYosCare is the product website for Yos Technologies, a Bangalore-based healthcare IT startup. The company seems to have formally come together in May 2007 when it secured its first round of funding- $1.25 million. Among its angel investors is the notable Rajesh Jain who founded IndiaWorld in 1995 and sold it to Sify in 1999 for $115 million.
Back to YosCare, though. It’s projected as a ‘e-Health Gateway’ that connects providers, patients, hospitals, Labs, Pharmacies and other healthcare players together. A provider to be able to access medical record in an emergency, or to remind the patient of an appointment are few of the much-needed improvements that YosCare can provide to Indian healthcare. But, as usual, I’m going to play the devil’s advocate more than the optimist.
In my view, having foreigners in the website graphics (even though its an India-focused company) is least of YosCare problems. YosCare has a lofty goal overall- the IT infrastructure and basic applications need to be pervasive enough in Indian healthcare economy for such product to be commercially viable. Although YosCare is sticking to international standards like HL7 , it doesn’t really matter If most pharmacies/labs/hospitals the patient goes to don’t have IT systems (and in the rare chance they do, it’s not necessarily HL7 compliant). I know its a chicken-and-egg situation, but that’s the Achilles heel- the overall penetration of IT as such is low for YosCare to leverage it effectively for a “gateway”. That argument aside, a remote-hosted model needs a minimum level of connectivity. What happens when the connection is down?
Second issue is around the consumer-controlled Personal Health Record. How many of the inundating patient population today have the initiative or (more importantly) the means to access/maintain/own their ‘personal’ health records? Insignificant fraction. That’s not because Indians don’t value their personal health info, but because they don’t have an incentive for doing so. Even in paperwork-heavy US healthcare, PHR’s haven’t taken off because most consumers (who have acute health issues) don’t see the value for it. Mobile-based health info is also an exaggerated concept today- besides an appointment reminder and few other logistical items, what else can you send in an SMS? and how secure is that mode for personal information?
Anyways, I do applaud YosCare on being one of the pioneers in a market plagued with difficulties (they have a nice ‘beta’ sign overlay on the logo). They seem to have a competent team and decent funding, I hope all my dismaying rant about the market conditions is proved wrong by them.
Comments»
It’s one thing to document your medical information… It’s another to know when and how to use it.
Mobile technologies may appear to be great for SMS to chat,but in the world of health care how could you compress entire patient record as SMS.
It is essential to educate consumers about health records first,then about personal health record followed by electronic health record and then electronic personal health record.
Even in US and Canada,people are not aware of concept of Personal Health record let alone electronic personal health record.People are worried about security of their health data.
But,it is a good beginning to start,and it opens up new vistas for future in health care management in India.