Business idea: telemedicine or “doctor in smartphone”

Norway was a trailblazer in telemedicine. This country started using the service providing access to medical services for residents of remote areas. France assessed such possibilities and implemented remote medical consultation for seamen. Later telemedicine started actively developing in other countries. Nowadays service “doctor in smartphone” has become a trend. During the last 5 years the volume of the global telemedicine market has increased twofold and amounts to USD 35b. According to the preliminary evaluation of experts, in 2021 the respective volume will amount to 40b dollars.

Some more statistics. 74% of American employers that have more than 200-person staff pay for the insurance for their employees that includes telemedicine services. Teladoc, the biggest US telemedicine platform services weekly more than 100k patients. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claim that it was consultation with “virtual” doctors that helped Americans to identify symptoms of COVID-19 during the coronavirus pandemic.

Advantages of the service

Due to the coronavirus pandemic interest in telemedicine has also increased in Ukraine. It is not surprising. Firstly, such format of consultations with the doctor is absolutely safe – there may be no contact with other patients, as well as with the doctor. Secondly, it was difficult to get to the hospital during the quarantine restrictions and consultation via the smartphone is a good alternative for standard appointment in a hospital.

Telemedicine – is the method of medical services provision when the distance is a critical aspect. The services are provided by medical workers using the information and communication technologies to receive information required for the disease detection, treatment and prevention.

Business potential 

Telemedicine service is an option that may become a new promising activity for specialized business entities (hospitals, medical institutions etc.), doctors– individual entrepreneurs, the number of which has increased lately, laboratories etc., as well as companies providing medical services as ancillary services in their portfolio (insurance companies, travel industry etc.).

“Earlier we dealt with opening of hospitals for one of the Ukrainian networks. Recently we, jointly with Kyivstar, launched the application Doctor Online – a service, where people can have an online-consultation with doctors, who are specialists in 17 different areas. In addition, our users can receive referrals for tests, test results reading, make an appointment in the laboratory, order medicine delivery and schedule for taking medicines in the calendar”, explains Mykola Kysel, co-founder and director of the company Doctor Online.

Based on the practitioners’ experience, the service is very popular, has a broad target audience and is not restricted geographically. “Many people apply to us from regions where they do not have either specialists, or primary care doctors. We also have applications from people who for some reasons do not have a possibility to go to the hospital and see a specialist. For example, our oldest patient is 77 years old. His son bought him a mobile phone, installed an application Doctor Online and purchased an annual subscription, which costs UAH 400. Now the man consults it in many issues related to his health and his neighbors’ health. The number of such consultations is unlimited with the subscription. Our users can also purchase monthly subscription that costs UAH 75, with unlimited number of consultations or can purchase one consultation with the specialists that costs UAH 50”, - describes the pricing policy Mykola Kysel.

Specific features of the service

Co-founder of the service Doctor Online notes that one doctor can consult simultaneously 5-6 patients. The consultation is given in online chat mode. A patient describes symptoms, tells about the earlier prescribed treatment, provides the previous test results, the system selects the necessary doctor and intelligent neural network speeds up the diagnosing. One doctor can consult up to 35 patients per hour in the chat mode. However, in the format of audio- and video consultations one doctor can work only with one patient. There is a separate group of doctors for such consultations in Doctor Online.

“Currently more than 60 doctors with different specializations work in the support of the service Doctor Online. These doctors are located at one of the hospitals and during the quarantine gave up to 1800 consultations per day. In total for the six months of the service operations the specialists gave more than 55k consultations”, shares the results Mykola Kysel.

Professionalism of doctors working for the telemedicine services plays a vital role for the success of such services. Doctor Online has defined several criteria for the specialist selection:

• knowledge of the medical field, in which the doctor specializes;
• ability to communicate with patients;
• stress-resistance and psychologist skills.

“During the six months of the service operations we gathered a significant number of loyal customers. They constitute 70% of the total customers number. Considering the rather low price of consultation and subscription, one patient applies repeatedly 3-5 times per month. 40% of applications on the territory of Ukraine are made by people from million-plus cities. As of today, application Doctor Online was downloaded in 151 countries. Every day the number of users increases by 2-7 thousand, outlines the co-founder of the service. Our customers are 25-45 year-old people who often use online services, are digitalized and believe that digital services are not worse than the services provided offline”.

Financial component and promotion

“Currently our service functions in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan. We are working on the launching of the application in EU and Persian Gulf countries. We enter each market via the mobile services providers-partners. It speeds up the product and services promotion”, points Mykola Kysel.

Depending on the strategy and goals set for the project for remote medical services provision, development and launch of such service may cost from USD 1k dollars to USD 2 mn. The team worked on the development of Doctor Online platform for six months. The profit is expected in 18 months. Specialists use different marketing and PR tools to promote the service. For example, they place advertisements in the services of medicine delivery, in Viber (section “Interesting”), in Google, Facebook etc.

Development prospects

Currently there are up to 10 services in Ukraine that provide telemedicine offerings. Each of such services has own specifics of operations, services provision, services themselves. Telemedicine is also supported on a legislative level. At the end of 2017, Verkhovna Rada adopted the law of Ukraine On Improving Affordability and Quality of Medical Services in Rural Areas, which implies introduction of telemedicine.

In 2019 telemedicine technologies were implemented in a test mode in five regions of Ukraine – Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad, Rive and Poltava. Guidelines regarding telemedicine and its use in Ukraine were developed jointly with the World Bank and the Canadian government. In February 2018, the Ministry of Regional Development, Construction and HCS and Ministry of Healthcare signed Memorandum with the World Bank and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Canada on introduction of telemedicine. The general situation in the market proves that the demand for the “doctor in smartphone” services will be increasing every year. It will facilitate the emergence of new market players and launch of new products by the existing players.