Introduction
The Tele-consultation product of company Ebixcash Pvt Ltd is called Ask a Doctor 24×7 and it has been available since 2008. Their business model is both B2B and B2C, and have the option of white labelling the product. They provide both mobile and web based applications for the doctors as well as patients. For patients, it is web-based patient portals.
Size of Healthcare Provider
The categories of healthcare providers that this solution can cater to are:
a) Individual Clinician
b) Clinics
Level of Specialization
The solution lends itself to use in the following levels of clinical specialisations:
a) Primary care
b) Secondary care
Expert Panel Evaluation
The platform does not have any mechanism to validate the credentials and identity of the doctor. Patients are also not verified (login/unique ID is not generated).
This platform functions as a call center and aggregator for making doctors accessible in rural areas. Admin chooses the doctor and matches the patient to the available doctor. They have tie-ups with the insurance companies for rural areas. The solution provides a web-based application for the doctors. Chat and video consultation facilities are available. Audio consultation with rural areas is located outside the primary technology solution (admin makes separate calls, platform provides Interactive Voice Response (IVR) facility). Video consultation has to be started by the doctor and precise timing is expected from both end users (doctor and patients). Templates are not available for the doctor for writing prescriptions. Consultation summary is required to be prepared by the doctor as free text format. There was no means to deliver prescriptions to patients in rural areas at time of demo. Multi party calling is feasible as any number of people can join video calls.
Patient and doctor receive notification of scheduled appointments as SMS and Email ten minutes prior to the appointment SMS goes to the patient/doctor. Patient history is captured during registration along with patient details. Dependants can fix appointments on behalf of the patient. In the case of follow-up, patients are required to remember and recollect doctor’s details and communicate to the admin. Cancellation is there and refunds are mediated manually by admin.
Consent is Implied and e-prescription doesn’t meet TPG guidelines for prescription. Data exchange standards are not used. Data storage is secured by using the MD5 algorithm for security(encryption). The solution announces the doctor’s name to the patient, prior to the consultation. The solution is for one time consultation purpose.
Unique Features
The solution also ensures following features:
a) Functions like a call centre, aggregator of doctors for rural areas
b) Multiple mechanism of connecting doctor patient (IVR/ web platform)
Solution Maturity Level
a) TPG compliant: 2
b) Feature complexity: 1