Jayanth brings over Nineteen years of experience in Technology, Product Marketing, Research and Strategy Consulting in the Telecom, Internet and Emerging Technologies (AI/ML, Blockchain & IoT) domains. He has been an advisor to the world’s leading technology firms, young & fast growing startups and the investor community, and has held various roles with Telecom Carriers, Device Manufacturers and Management Consulting firms in the past. Until recently, as a Partner with Convergence Catalyst, Jayanth leveraged his hands-on experience and domain expertise to advise various companies to align themselves with the ever-changing technology and market trends, and evolve as leaders in the Digital Convergence space. He has mentored a number of progressive and fast growing technology startups on Product & Service Offerings, Business Planning, Go-To-Market Strategies and Fund Raising. Jayanth is also an advisor to various PE & VC firms, Institutional Investors, Hedge Funds and FIIs on private equity transactions and public equity positions.
Technology plays a pivotal role in shaping the well-being of people. Everyone realizes this during the pandemic. In the new normal, digital technology-led businesses offer opportunities to hospitals, corporates, and the general public to leverage the strengths of technology to support other industries. The pandemic is here to stay for some time. So, technology-enabled services will witness more adoption and acceptance by the masses.
The pandemic created a new situation for the globe. Population health management has become the top priority for governments. Business leaders have also aligned their businesses by adopting new practices and innovative models to sustain and grow. However, the challenges were many given the unprecedented crisis and its cascading effects on human lives.
In the healthcare domain, especially in India, there exists a gap in delivery systems and quality of care. Over the years, working closely with companies developing solutions for the healthcare industry has provided me adequate insight to understand the dynamics of both healthcare systems and patient’s needs. It is found that less than 10 percent of patients know what they are supposed to do after returning from the hospital. Sometimes, many do not even know what they were supposed to do a mere two hours after leaving the hospital. Such episodes indicate the severity of the situation.
With the pandemic and new normal health tech startups are contributing significantly to healthcare delivery. A focus on digital technology-enabled health services and the adoption of innovative practices has been helping such startups to grow in the new normal.
The Growth Drivers
Acute care management has emerged as one of the major focus areas for health tech companies. Acute care management requires in-depth research and innate healthcare domain understanding. These components, coupled with technical expertise and having industry leaders as a part of the team, are the key growth drivers for health tech startups. Human-driven tech enables services would be a dominant factor in the new normal. For acute care, management it is essential to ensure that the service is duly monitored, tracked, and supervised by clinicians, doctors, and nurses. The solution currently uses advanced data analytics and Natural Language Processing (NLP)-based AI technologies, delivered through a mobile app.
Innovative Business Model
To thrive in a new normal health tech service providers can choose a B2B a model where the startup partners with hospitals, insurance providers, and corporations. They can further offer their solution to their patients, customers, and employees. With a better synergy with hospitals, insurance providers, corporates, and government agencies, a health tech startup offers many solutions that sustain and thrive in the new normal.
Looking back, the pandemic outbreak and subsequent lockdown in 2020 posed a severe challenge to the healthcare service providers, including health tech companies. Almost all the hospitals across the country had stopped performing elective surgeries, directly impacting proposed solution rollouts. The post lockdown period was not encouraging either, as several specialty hospitals postponed elective surgeries until late 2020. Also, most of the hospitals kept treating COVID-19 patients till the last quarter of 2020. In such a situation, the customer acquisition process was affected poorly and resulted in delayed revenue generation for health tech service providers. The sluggish growth by over two quarters was its logical progression.
Combating the second wave
In April 2021, as the second wave of COVID-19 gripped India, our Remote COVID-19 Care Programme, which was developed and readily available, was in much demand. Through in-depth studies, we found that many COVID-19 infected patients could be treated at home effectively. We leveraged this with our technical know-how and engineering strength by combining intelligent technologies and trained care coaches. So, effective monitoring, timely medication, proper diet, periodical clinicians’ intervention and stress management under isolation situations helped the patients a lot. One can judge the program’s success by looking at its associations with several large corporate houses. These organizations have opted for COVID and Post-COVID Programs for their employees.
As money matters to sustain and grow, the startup’s unique offerings in the health tech domain attracted global investors, as they showed their keen interest in putting their money in a rapidly enlarging health tech service provider company.
The Way Forward
According to the Industry ARC report, the global acute care market size is forecast to reach $214.3 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 6.8 percent during the forecast period of 2020-2025. It is a known fact that patient experience is vital in defining 21st-century healthcare. As the surgical patient’s journey is complex, patient consumerism, clinical outcomes, support, experiences, and safety are relevant components. Hence, an innovative business model must combine these critical components in its delivery system to sustain and grow in a new normal. What could be more satisfying for an entrepreneur than to evolve by aligning his business model to contribute to making a healthier India! Business leaders need to align their models with the needs of the new age in terms of providing best-in-class products and services. This approach will always help while navigating troubled waters.