Healthcare start-up keen to fill Tamil Nadu’s ‘follow-up’ gaps

According to a 2017 study by the Indian Council of Medical Research: India Diabetes (ICMR- INDIAB) - at 53 deaths per 1,00,000 population, Tamil Nadu has the highest death rate from diabetes among Indian states. As patients are looking for ways to reduce spend, healthcare providers are considering ‘follow up care’ as a key tool in bringing about a change. Anand Kumar Tiwari, the Senior Director, Product Management, ZeOmega, the parent company of Eldricare, talks about the opportunities in this space, and the company’s plans for the South. 

India currently represents 49 per cent of the world’s diabetes burden, with an estimated 72 mn cases in 2017, as per ICMR. Diabetes needs regular monitoring and doctor’s advice. Negligence leads to other conditions like hypertension and cardiovascular diseases which means an additional burden of healthcare expense. Opting for a follow-up care for a chronic disease like diabetes could help manage the disease at an initial stage, reducing the chances of complications and increased healthcare expenditure.

According to the Indian Journal of Medical Research, India faces an acute dearth of specialists, both in the rural and urban spaces. The doctor to patient ratio is now 1:1800. A shortage of 200% is estimated in the future. India has observed fast demographic changes which will soon result in an outpour of lifestyle disorders (cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancer). Lifestyle diseases need continuous care and the intervention of skilled professionals. We enable extension services away from the point of care to support the ailing population. We have expertise in designing geography specific models for patients. 

Tamil Nadu has the highest death rate from diabetes among the Indian states (53 per 1 lakh) and Karnataka (42 per 1 lakh), both significantly higher than the national average of 23 per 1 lakh. South India is in dire need of follow-up care services to manage lifestyle disorders. 

We are optimistic that through our services, we will be able to help a larger population within a short time. Follow-up care is entirely a new concept in the Indian healthcare space. So, from a business standpoint, we plan to roll out most of the acute care and post-acute care segments in a span of 2 to 3 years. This would come after studying and understanding all the social determinants and complexities of the given segments. 

The increase in number of patients visiting hospitals is mounting. However, acute shortfall of paramedics makes it difficult to take care of each patient and co-relate his/her entire health history. This is where we step in and extends services, both to hospitals and patients to improves recovery time and quality of life. 

We provide healthcare services at grassroots level to patients by leveraging Jiva, the end-to-end Population Health Management (PHM) platform created by ZeOmega. The technology within Jiva allows doctors, nurses, pharmacists, other healthcare providers and patients to appropriately access and securely share a patient’s vital medical information electronically—improving the speed, quality, safety, and cost of patient care. Currently, we cater to the needs of MS Ramaiah Hospitals (a government hospital) where they have extended follow up services for their diabetes specialty.

Healthcare Management services are an extended arm to the overall industry. Technology like medical coding and EHRs helps healthcare service providers in streamlining processes in the healthcare industry.