Well-versed in technology, Shelly Saxena believes that text campaigns, Telemedicine alone, and mobile phone health initiatives won’t be able to deliver healthcare in India since these applications would never be able to replace the need for a patient to meet up with a doctor.
“Whether you’re poor, middle class, or wealthy, you want to see a doctor, and you would prefer to see that doctor in person,” says Saxena who developed SevaMob in 2012: a solution that combines technology with services to cater to India’s healthcare needs.
SevaMob is a mobile clinic that offers dental care and treatment, eye exams, and an endless list of tests — dengue, malaria, hemoglobin, diabetes, urine analysis, and more. The vans come with doctors, accredited professionals to carry out tests, and aides, reports Forbes.
To keep costs low and the service affordable, Saxena rented vans from local agencies or even from Uber, and fitted them with the necessary diagnostic equipment. In lieu of offering consulting to individuals, he started offering consulting to groups such as private corporations, social enterprises or indeed any group of at least 60 people or more that would pay for the services offered. Currently, the service is available in 7 states in India and recently, Sevamob expanded to South Africa and Lesotho.
Sevamob has added two other layers to their services: an online portal where patients can search for doctors and specialists. If the patient cannot physically reach a doctor that is far away, he/she can pay for an “online visit”. For such patients that do not have access to Internet, Sevamob provides a 24/7 hot line where staff in a call center help patients locate pharmacies, doctors or specialists.
Saxena believes strongly that healthcare in India cannot be completely digitized: it’s got to be layers of services that complement one another and a business model that caters to crowds, not individuals, he says.
