Introduction
The Tele-consultation product of company BeatO is called BeatO and it has been available since 2015. The solution providers value cost reduction the most. Their business model is B2C (doctor and patient both as customers). They provide both mobile and web based applications for the doctors. They also provide mobile applications for patients.
Size of Healthcare Provider
The Solution is useful for the following categories of healthcare providers:
a. Individual Clinician
b. Clinics
Level of Specialization
The solution can be used in the following settings of specialisation of clinical services:
a. Primary
b. Secondary
Expert Panel Evaluation
The solution is specialty specific (diabetes), minimum clicks and easy to use interface for doctors. The application is easy to use for patients once they are trained. Patients are onboarded via call and the user-guide (pdf) is shared with them. Doctors are on-boarded via in-person demo. They have a dedicated team for helping customers (doctors only) and troubleshooting.
Doctors can book and manage appointments, check and update payment status. Doctors can access the history, logs and trend charts, patients’ previous case history using the application dashboard. They can chat with patients while accessing the details of patients. It is not a synchronous solution as doctors cannot take notes or access records while being on video call with a patient. Doctors are expected to write prescriptions and upload a scanned copy of handwritten notes. Platform provides a facility to integrate the doctor’s signature as a footnote with every prescription given. Referral and sharing of records are not possible. Multi person video calling and dependent features are not there.
Platform does not generate any EMR/PHR data apart from just uploading the prescription. The platform is designed to provide lifestyle advice (not medical), so ICD /SNOMED is not integrated. Although providers mentioned that the application is HL7 and DICOM compliant, we understand that these standards are not implemented and in actual usage.
At the time of appointment booking, the patient’s problem and medication history is asked. Patients can also add/share reports with doctors. Patients can select doctors from the list for booking appointments and choose voice (only) and video (only) consultation. The patient can access the history of past records, payment details and prescriptions from mobile application. Solution also has a proprietary device interface for patients. Device and product both are specific to diabetes care. Device is attachable to the cell phones. Patients can customise the reading appropriateness of blood sugar values, and a log is created associated with it [pre lunch, random, postprandial]. Alerts are in-built in the application based on reading. Hb1ac is estimated.
In order to provide good consulting experience to patients, the doctor’s side of the interface has facilities to manage appointments, calendar scheduling. Platform provides facility to initiate refund to patients in case of appointment cancellation. It also facilitates features where doctors can share educational/promotional contents which includes health education, sharing research and news articles with the patient. Consent is implicit and is considered as part of platform use terms and conditions.
Unique Features
The solution also ensures following features:
a. Specific to diabetes management
b. IoT integration
Solution Maturity Level
a. TPG compliant: 3b
b. Feature complexity: 3b