MedOnGo realized early on in 2014 for interconnected, real time, primary care system and even implemented much before Pandemic. Pandemic made us realize that our healthcare system remains vulnerable to novel threats no matter what. Post pandemic further made us realize urgent need of interconnected Smart Health Grid which is available and effective. This made us realize at policy level for Universal Health Coverage SDG Goals must be accelerated. And create a globally inclusive primary ecosystem founded on the invincible principles of advanced technologies and predictive and preventive innovative healthcare.
Just imagine a world where primary healthcare ecosystems are integrated into a multichannel service delivery model to create MedOnGo Health Pvt Ltd powered Smart Health Grid.
Envisioned by Balaji P. Krishnammagaru, Managing Director–who firmly believes that primary healthcare is the first line of defence for individuals, families, communities, and nation–MedOnGo focuses on giving curative aspects at the onset of symptoms so that the subject need not get hospitalized at all. This is the primary goal.
To achieve this, MedOnGo intends to deliver primary care to the last man standing with all available means, including Smart Clinics, Health kiosks, Medicine Vending Machines, Tele-Consultations, and At-Home Care.
Made On Noble Goals
MedOnGo was established in 2014 to serve the business needs of some of India’s top organizations. Balaji shares, “Our healthcare solutions, 24/7 support, integrated technology, and comprehensive software modules are unparalleled throughout the industry. Our services are customized to meet the appropriate needs of our healthcare partners and will continue to remain at the cutting edge of the field of Smart Health.” MedOnGo closely works with corporates, NGOs, government institutions, and healthcare departments to improvise and provide the necessary infrastructure for healthcare.
Balaji feels, “As evidenced in our mission, we believe delivering a quality healthcare experience is primary to fulfilling our mission of the care and improvement of human life. We can achieve this by providing care that recognizes the diverse cultures and backgrounds of our patients, doctors, and providers where everyone is treated with fairness, dignity, and respect.”
Healthcare in Golden Hour
Speaking about MedOnGo’s USPs, Quality, and last-mile availability of Healthcare, Balaji says that in their position, they cater to 10+ states in India in association with NGOs and Govt. institutions. Some of their major ongoing projects are Mohalla Clinic in Delhi, Sanjeeveni Clinics in Rajasthan, Aapla Dawakhana in Maharashtra, etc.
Elaborating more about MedOnGo’s offerings and aspects that make it stand out in the healthcare sector, Balaji says that they are giving integrated multi-channel service delivery from phones to smart clinics and everything in between. Effective care and making it available at the time of need in the golden hour is their primary focus.
Balaji mentions, “We call our Service Delivery Model as,”
MedOnGo Smart Health Grid
The MedOnGo Smart Health Grid’s fundamental elements are
Smart Clinic: Smart Clinics with end-to-end primary care services.
CliniSmart Kiosk: Virtual Consultation, Automatic Medicine Vending Machines in the areas having inadequate health facilities.
Health App: An all-in-one Health App primarily to address primary care, preventive care and to serve as aggregator of other health apps.
CliniPort: Home-based preventive screening and consultation delivery through frontline health workers or trained technicians (Bike Model) on demand.
Mobile Unit: Smart services for Medical Mobile Units (MMU).
Phone Services: In case of emergency, on road, disaster, to provide health services and advice when no other channel is available.
The Grandmaster of Core IoT Beliefs
Balaji P. Krishnammagaru started his journey as an engineer in the late nineties. Involved in some of the firsts in the world, like the first eCommerce platforms to smartphones to mobile payments and pre-dominantly worked with Japanese OEMs, ODMs and Operators till 2006 and started his first company.
The core of Balaji’s belief is to create devices and an ecosystem for devices to solve particular problems in the early 2000s and now what we call IoT today. He realized Heath IoT and wearable is the way forward for healthcare, and he further narrowed his focus on primary care as it was THE MOST important and MOST neglected field.
MedOnGo started looking at the primary care ecosystem. The initial aim of MedOnGo was to measure and improve the quality of Doctor-Patient encounters. Balaji says, “This we started calling Patient Engagement. During the course of time, we realized that effective consultation and availability of consultation are two different things given a situation.”
Tech-Patient Engagement
Still, with Patient Engagement as the core of its offering, MedOnGo started selling Technology. Around 2015-16 MedOnGo clearly decided that delivery of service as its core offering and relegated technology sales to the back side.
This had a huge impact on MedOnGo thinking and improving technology as by being a service provider, MedOnGo itself was consuming its own technology, “Where we started with 100 consultations a day in 2015 went to 10K consultations in 2018, and now MedOnGo does about 1.5 Lakhs consultations per day,” reveals Balaji.
MedOnGo started looking at treating patients at the earliest onset of symptoms. Now moving towards predictive and preventive care, these will become a significant part of its service offerings, both in-person consultations and remote consultations.
Enhancing the Benchmarks
Balaji shares his opinion on advanced technologies like AI and ML’s continuous impact on the MedTech industry, saying, “We experienced with users that when we deploy the solution, we need to train health workers\users who never used email; and also, some extremely experienced ones who used Super Computers in giving care.”
The most challenging is to get a baseline for healthcare for the best and most experienced doctors and for fresh doctors to use the same technology and keep improving the quality-of-service delivery.
Dawn of the Revolutionary Healthcare
According to Balaji, the challenges faced by them are numerous, and failures are common. Each is critically evaluated to better the service delivery. “It’s impossible to state few at this stage as we are at the dawn of a revolution in healthcare. Consider we are in `1990 in IT\PC and Mobile Era and that how we see healthcare technologies today,” expresses Balaji.
Balaji’s only advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the MedTech space is ‘Empathy, period.
Ruffling Feathers Globally
When probed about how he envisions scaling MedOnGo’s operations and offerings in the future, Balaji says, “We are not going to divulge, but sure to ruffle feathers worldwide. We are working in some of the remotest parts of India with high disaster to the core of our Political and Financials capitals of India. Sure, we will ruffle feathers with people who have Health Dedicated Super Computers at their disposal.”
“We at MedOnGo are delivering smart primary health care to the last mile population almost for no cost, with current successful establishments in 13+ states, and expansion is under progress,” he concludes.
