Small and Medium-sized Hospitals Offers Over 30% Cheaper Services: Founder, Mykare

Mykare Health is a tech-enabled full-stack asset-light healthcare provider in India. The brand delivers an affordable and standardised surgical care and wellness care for domestic and international patients, ensuring maximum utilisation of small and medium hospital facilities.

In an exclusive conversation with Senu Sam, Founder, Mykare. Below given are the edited excerpts-

What are the difficulties you face as an entrepreneur? How has Mykare’s journey been going since its inception in 2020?

Becoming a founder is a bigger dream for someone who grew up in the South. The entire startup ecosystem was new to me. As a first-generation entrepreneur, building a team is a tough task, and getting a co-founder and employee was no cake walk. We learned from our struggle and persistently moved ahead. We have had amazing mentors from day one, including the senior leadership of the company.

What are the key points a healthcare entrepreneur should take care of to compete with the giants in the domain?

Healthcare is an experience. Compared to any other segment people are coming to healthcare with certain pain points, caring them with extra care and making them happy are the extra task on the sectors. Patient are coming with some sort of anxiety. Making them comfort and giving them right information is most pivotal thing for an healthcare entrepreneur. We do not have plan B, we have to work on delivering the right medication and guidance. Make sure that their entire journey is seamless and full of clarity.

The healthcare market is just building itself for startups. So far, the startups have touched the tip of iceberg of the sector. Another thousand startup has to come forward to cater to this huge demand. Every player can sustain in the market provided they follow the right strategy.

How are you aiming to target Tier I and Tier II markets?

It's only through technology; earlier, telemedicine was the only thing; however, telemedicine alone cannot do much. Telemedicine can be the starting point or touch point, but the patient still requires 360-degree care. Internet penetration is much needed to reach the Tier I and Tier II cities of India. After the pandemic, the stakeholders in the sector started accepting digitisation, which will help us expand in tier I and II markets.

How can AI help in curating personalised and healthcare? How do you make surgery affordable?

The 5G penetration will happen, and people will get faster bandwidth. Therefore, the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) will cater to a much larger audience. Right now, AI and IOT help with data generation and analysis. For instance, the smartwatches are generating a lot of data. Further, the data helps in predicting diseases such as heart attacks. As far as surgery is concerned, it helps in predicting the surgical cost. Before even reaching the hospital, we can predict the cost of surgery.

AI also helps in analysing the diagnosis report and can figure out the right treatment as well. When a patient visits ten different facilities, it costs time, money, and energy. Hence, the time is delayed, the compilation increases, and the cost of surgery also increases. AI helps make informed decisions by selecting from the available treatments. It delivers everything on time and makes the surgery affordable.

India has a huge shortage of registered doctors. WHO recommends one doctor per 1,000 individuals. Do you think this can be tackled by technological advancement?

The majority of the doctors are still available in urban areas. A lot can be done with technology to fix this. Technology helps accelerate the treatment by cutting down on time. A single doctor is handling many patients; a lot of this burden can be taken over and patients can get informed information before they reach the doctor with the help of technology integration. This will give doctors much more time to treat the patients. Furthermore, the technology helps the services reach the patients rather than the patients reaching out to the service providers.

What is your USP? How do you stand apart from your competitors and healthcare giants?

As per various reports, the surgery-tech companies have not even captured 2 percent of India's market size. We see an amazing opportunity ahead. We not only cater to the patients but also see the supply side of doctors and small and medium hospitals.

Rather than focusing on only one stakeholder, we take care of each stakeholder and make sure to have a win-win solution for everyone. Strengthening the small and medium-sized hospitals is one of Mykare’s missions, and with that, we make sure to provide the top level of facilities and good doctors at an affordable price.

Where do you foresee the sector growing as an affordable service provider in India?

Nearly 65 percent of India's population is out of pocket. People are looking for affordable healthcare services, but they are not aware of the doctors and facilities in small and medium-sized hospitals.

There are 30 to 40 percent cheaper services at smaller hospitals. In the near future, people will opt for more MyKare-type services rather than expensive ones in bigger hospitals. Moreover, India caters to international patients as well. They visit India for affordability. Small and medium-sized hospitals have the potential to cater to them as well.