In rural hinterland of India where the number of primary healthcare centres (PHCs) is limited and service delivery is handicapped further by doctors’ shortage, patients are left with little options. An ambitious start-up — CureBay — has now been launched to bridge the critical gap in the under-served market.
A group of top-rung executives of multinational companies has joined hands to aggregate all branches of healthcare services and make those available to villagers at their doorstep through an innovative technological platform.
“It will prove to be a game-changer,” said Priyadarshi Mohapatra, founder and Chief Executive Officer of CureBay.
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These professionals found that majority of investments in health sector have taken place in secondary and tertiary sectors in Tier-1 or Tier-II cities. Primary healthcare has not been given due attention. Majority of people in countryside depend on PHCs. But, in reality shortage of doctors defeats all stated objectives.
Similarly, interventions had been made on technological front. “Telemedicine and e-commerce have not helped people in remote areas,” said Mr. Mohapatra.
The group decided to use hybrid model which is combination of technology and physical presence.
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“We aggregate doctors, hospitals, pharmacy and laboratories. We created a healthcare ecosystem through our platform with hyper local focus,” he said. “The physical centres have two trained healthcare persons such as nursing staff and pharmacists. The start-up provides three basic facilities to them – access to platform, medical grade devices and point of care devices which enable them to carry out basic tests.”
People are advised to reach the nearest centre. The trained staff would facilitate teleconsultation with a doctor. Soon, the centre extracts two basic things from e-prescriptions —- medicine and required tests. CureBay is planning a physical logistic by which they will deliver the branded and ethical medicine physically in the interior area. The trained staff would draw samples and send those to NABL approved laboratories. The idea is to provide 70% of healthcare needs including consultation, pathological tests and medicine at the centre itself without letting patients to undertake travels. CureBay opened its first centre at Bamanala on November 17.