The number of cancer patients seeking second opinions on Navya, an online consultation site, jumped to 15,237 in 2019 from 3,189 in 2015, a nearly 377% rise in five years. Three studies presented at various conferences have revealed that patients saved a considerable amount of money and travel time when they sought expert opinions online.
A study of 1,803 cancer patients published by the European Society for Medical Oncology revealed that on average, patients saved ₹81,000 on travel-related cost, 1,225 km of travel and three-and-a-half days when they sought opinions on Navya. Another study presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium that analysed 530 breast cancer patients revealed that, on average, a patient saved ₹1.71 lakh, 1,147 km of travel and 4.35 days to receive an opinion. “The benefit of such a service is uniform care for all cancer patients. Uniform care improves outcomes. This is a novel way of saving lives,” said Dr. Rajendra Badwe, director of the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC).
Founded by graduates from Harvard, MIT Sloan and Stanford, Navya is a clinical informatics and patient services company that has partnered with TMC and National Cancer Grid.
When a patient registers and uploads all the necessary reports of his or her diagnosis, the Navya analysts streamline the information and a panel of experts from TMC and National Cancer Grid give an opinion.
“Patients get an opinion within 24 hours and 98% of the output from the system is concordant with the actual tumour board,” said Dr. Tushar Vora, professor, paediatric and medical oncology at the hospital.
“At Tata hospital in Mumbai, we get patients from across the country and even outside. Besides treatment, patients come for opinions and to double-check their line of treatment,” he said. The team analysed the time and money spent by such patients and as compared to visiting the hospital, online opinion saved out-of-pocket expenses and time significantly, he said.
The patients who register on Navya are charged ₹8,500 for an opinion but the service is free for patients with annual income less than ₹2.5 lakh. Dr. Badwe said many philanthropic organisations have started to fund patients to avail of the service.
