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Today, we speak with Gaurav Gupta, Co-founder of Navia Life Care, to understand how Navia Life Care is re-sharing the healthcare sector through its innovative solutions.
Here is an full expect:
TechGraph: Before we start the interview, can you please let our readers know more about Navia Life Care?
Gaurav Gupta: Navia Life Care was started by Kunal Kishore Dhawan and Gaurav Gupta in 2016. Prior to starting Navia, they worked together on a couple of pharma consulting projects, having a background in healthcare and life sciences.
Coming from families with chronic disease patients, and having studied and worked in the field, starting a company in the healthcare industry was a natural decision while making a difference to the ecosystem was a collective passion. More recently, Nupur Khandelwal joined Navia as a co-founder and has been an integral part of the functioning of the company since.
TechGraph: What are the industry challenges you have observed that coerced you to jump into this space?
Gaurav Gupta: Most of us have faced many issues when we visited a doctor for ourselves or with our families. The long queues at the front office, huge pile of medical records to be carried, lack of adherence to medication, poor healthcare and health outcomes.
These challenges are even bigger for chronic disease patients who need to keep visiting a doctor and manage their disease on a regular basis. We have grown up with chronic disease patients in our families and have been seeing our family members struggling with these problems for years.
As founders, we felt that there is a pertinent need to find solutions to these problems. We, because of our background in healthcare and an in-depth understanding of technology, felt that these problems can be solved by the use of technology and hence started the journey of Navia.
TechGraph: Why are digital healthcare services important?
Gaurav Gupta: Healthcare in India faces the growing challenges of access and affordability. Technology has the ability to address the needs of providers and change the dynamic of health care delivery.
In recent times, digital health in India has significantly moved from ‘Good to have’ to ‘Must have’.
Digital health makes quality healthcare affordable in hard-to-reach areas. Through the Internet connection, anyone can access health services and always be connected to the professional to resolve concerns.
The professional can store all the information quickly, access it whenever he wants, and share it with the patient or other health professionals. The data will allow making very accurate reports, contrast the patient’s progress, and make clinical decisions more easily. Digital technologies lead to greater patient empowerment and adherence to treatment thanks to the biofeedback they receive in real-time.
TechGraph: What according to you is the scope of health-tech service in India?
Gaurav Gupta: Healthcare in India has always been an industry with ample opportunities, and this covid times this sector has witnessed massive growth.
Technology can help in education, better care delivery, improved outcomes, and making patients and doctors aware of better lifestyle choices. In more ways than one, technology has proved to be the most effective way to transform the healthcare industry in India.
India has a large patient population to cater to an equally large number of providers, each having a role to play in the implementation of technology to improve access to quality healthcare. Also, with the increasing penetration of health insurance, both government and private organizations are bringing the need for technology to the forefront, which entrepreneurs are always keen to leverage.
The scope is huge and the impact we can make using technology in people lives is also very huge
TechGraph: What according to you is the biggest pain point in the healthcare sector that needs to be addressed?
Gaurav Gupta: Healthcare providers:
1. Paperwork
2. Lack of accurate medical history of the patients
3. Maintenance of Records
4. Low patient adherence
5. Affordability & Accessibility
TechGraph: The past few months have been very challenging for every sector. How did Navia Life Care deal with this?
Gaurav Gupta: As the lockdown was enforced in the last week of March, the patients, both chronically ill and acute, were in an immediate flux because of a lack of mobility and unavailability of the doctors. Along with this, there was a fear of nosocomial infections. Video consultation emerged as a viable option and provided the patients with a seamless OPD-like experience with their doctors.
The government of India published the telemedicine guidelines on 25th March, this helped in instilling confidence in doctors and patients to use telemedicine as a viable option and we have seen thousands of consultations happening on our platform since.
We are focussed on creating value for the healthcare ecosystem. At this time of need, our team is working round the clock to understand user behavior for both doctors and patients so as to make it easier for them to communicate using our telemedicine platform.
The use of technology is not new for our doctors but during their everyday practice, the doctors are used to seeing the patients in person. We are trying to make this transition easier for both the doctors and patients by hand-holding them at every step.
TechGraph: What type of growth, Navia Life Care registered during this phase?
Gaurav Gupta: We, at Navia, were very quick in understanding the changing needs of the doctors and patients due to the lockdown and other restrictions because of COVID-19.
Navia emerged as a leading telemedicine and EMR company which helped, and we received a stellar response from both doctors and patients who actively took up the use of Navia’s products which helped them in continued medical care during these difficult times.
We are now present in more than 400 cities with more than 8000 doctors on the platform. We have thousands of patients who are being benefited from the platform on a daily basis.
TechGraph: Is there any plan to enter new verticals too?
Gaurav Gupta: Navia has an ambitious vision for itself to achieve by 2025, we wish to enable more than 250 thousand doctors and over 200 million patients in over 10 countries by our digital health platforms.
We envision an ecosystem where patient care and patient outcomes are the primary objectives and information is available to all the stakeholders to achieve these objectives. We see us playing a central role in this ecosystem by enabling data generation and data sharing among these stakeholders.