Introduction
The Tele-consultation product of company NETMEDS MARKETPLACE Limited is called Netmeds and it is available from 2019. The solution providers value improved care delivery the most. Their business model is B2C and also has an option of white labelling the product. They provide both mobile and web based applications for the doctors. They also provide mobile applications for patient and/or web based patient portals.
Size of Healthcare Provider
The categories of healthcare providers that this solution can cater to are:
a) Individual clinician
Level of Specialization
The solution lends itself to use in the following levels of clinical specialisations:
a) Primary care
Expert Panel Evaluation
The platform has an easy to use interface for doctors. They have the speciality specific rules engine in the backend for case report preparation from the patient’s reported history. This case summary (history) is available to doctors. This platform supports basic clinical workflow (SOAP format) of teleconsultation. Type of interaction is not synchronous as note taking is in a separate tab along with video consultation. The supported prescription format is scanned, and within application the basic template of note taking. In case of platform generated prescription scanned signature is added. There is no feature to record the doctor patient interaction/ consultation. No alerts are there to the doctors.
The platform is easy to use for patients. The platform has a premium and basic subscription business model for the customers. Premium subscription patients can choose a doctor and book appointment for others (dependents), and can upload the documents. In the basic subscription patients have to search a specialty doctor for booking appointments. During onboarding, Patient is shown instructions on preparing for a video call. Doctor registration details and profile is shown to patients. After appointment, booking patients are asked to provide history, clinical symptoms and signs.
Prescriptions are sent as email, so patients can access and download from there. Prescription is uploaded and a link is shared with the patient (Active for 48 hours). Patients can chat with doctors and the chat window remains active for 48 hours. The 24X7 support team is there, doctors and patients both can access it. PHR (Personal Health Record) not there and smartphone use is mandatory.
There is no feature to do multiparty calling and cross referral cannot be done. Application is not multilingual. Premium members can add family members and book appointments for them on their behalf. The platform provides facility to initiate refund to patients in case of appointment cancellation. Patients can rate and provide feedback about doctors.
In terms of compliance, application providers have mechanisms associated with the platform to validate registration details of doctors with the help of support teams. Consent is implicit as is part of terms and conditions. Audit trail is there but data is stored without encryption. Proprietary EMR integration is facilitated.
Additional Features
The solution also ensures following features:
a) Proprietary EMR integration
b) Rule Based Information to prepare case reports (for history)
Solution Maturity Level
a) TPG compliant: 3a [Partial]
b) Feature complexity: 3b [Partial]