BUT IT WILL TAKE SOME TIME BEFORE THE CONCEPT CATCHES ON IN INDIA

Amit Vyas, 33, was not too happy with himself. A stressful job, weight problems, living out of a suitcase, and to make things worse, one pack of cigarettes every day, Vyas knew this was not the best of lifestyles. At the first excuse - symptoms of weakness in the morning - he decided to go for a complete check-up in Ahmedabad. The cardiologist conducted some tests and prescribed a few medicines. However, Vyas was not satisfied. An internet addict, he came across Ehealthopinion.com, a healthcare portal, and dashed off a query. To his surprise, the reply came within minutes, and the faceless doctor confirmed through video chat that Vyas was indeed receiving the right treatment from the Ahmedabad cardiologist.

Far away in Canada, Rakesh Ohir, a former Ranbaxy executive, is building up a business model on the premise that 80% ailments do not require physical examination. Oral consultation is enough. Why take the trouble of going to your doctor for a cold or fever when you can have a webcam chat with a doctor online and get medicines prescribed.

Ohir says, the model works well in the West where consultation charges can be above $100. And at $30, online consultation makes a lot of sense for patients suffering from minor problems. While telemedicine has been around for sometime, online consultancy or browser-based e-health consultancy is fast catching up, with entrepreneurs sensing a lot of business potential. Unlike telemedicine, that is exchange of patients' medical information, browser-based consultancy is a step ahead, providing 24x7 online services, importantly, it connects the patient and doctor realtime, either through chat or two-way online video streaming.

The new entrants are eyeing the US market to begin with as it will still take a lot of time for the business to become viable in India. As per a recent report of market research firm Pike & Fischer, the US market for tele-medicine services will generate nearly $3.6 billion in annual revenue in the next five years, with mobile-service companies taking a sizeable chunk of that business.

eeHealthbook.com, for instance, gets 10,100 visitors per day. The average time spent is eight minutes per visitor. The company claims 55% of the visitors are from South Asia (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) and the remaining 45% are from the US, Canada, South America, Middle East, Russia and CIS countries. eeHealthbook is quite upbeat now and is hopeful of a deal with Blackberry RIM. "Our business model has been approved by World Bank as one of their projects, and we are in talks to develop software for Blackberry RIM, Canada, for networking with doctors, hospital and pharmacy around the globe. This will provide the eehealthbook service on their Blackberry," Ohir told ET. Devendra Patel who founded Medisoft, an Ahmedabad-based firm that deals with telemedicine, has started ehealthopinion.com. "Even though we have been in the telemedicine business segment for the past seven years, web-based ehealth is a new venture for us," says Patel.

While Patel gets 90% of his revenues from tele-medicine business, he sees a lot of potential from the new web-based segment. His e-health consultancy has been growing 25-40% and now has 225 doctors and 85 hospitals registered across 85 countries. The number of patients registered is 3,000, with two or three being added every day. Similarly, Ahmedabad-based pathologist Sanjeev Metha plans to link up with hospitals for his six-month-old start-up, The Meditour. His plan is to have real time, web-based medical consultancy portal that links patients to doctors, nursing staff and hospital technicians in hospitals. "I have plans to interlink government and private hospitals. I have recently visited African countries, and many of the hospitals are interested in getting linked with Ahmedabad-based hospitals through web," he said. Ohir of eehealthbook too has tied up with Apollo Hospital, Ahmedabad, for treating his web-based patients at the hospital. While entrepreneurs are optimistic, pharma experts are cautious in their assessment about the niche segment. "It's a good concept. However, one does not know how practical it is. Common man may like to avail of this facility for low involvement and low-risk symptoms, especially when the doctor's fees become exorbitant," says Ruth D'Souza, executive director, Interlink, a pharma consultancy firm.

Vishal Gandhi, vice-president, life science and healthcare banking, Yes Bank, feels ehealth is still emerging and has a long way to go. "The only sub-sector that has matured is tele-radiology (wherein x-rays and test reports are sent to doctors located elsewhere). It is clearly emerging as a viable business model in terms of outsourcing option from developed world to India. However, the legal concerns arising out of a wrong comment (diagnosis) still remain."

Dr Milind Antani, who heads pharma and life science practice at Nishith Desai Associates, an international law firm, has reservations over the viability of the web-based live medical consultancy business model. "There is a possibility that Indian doctors can face issues from a foreign country where the patient, to whom consultation is provided, is based," he says. Commenting on the viability of the business model, pathologist Dr Metha says: "It would take a year or so to break-even, but it's difficult to say as it's yet not an established business model." Mr Ohir, however, is not conservative about his estimates. He expects to clock a turnover of $8-10 million in his first year of operations and hopes to touch $75-80 million by 2012.

HEALTHY OPTION

* Web-based consultancy model works well in the West where consultation charges can be above $100

* Players claim 25-40% growth in e-health consultancy

* Unlike telemedicine, browser-based consultancy provided 24x7 online services

Source: The Economic Times