Healthcare has never been a strong point for India. With just over 8.5 lakh active allopathic doctors in India (as of 29/11/2011, Medical Council of India), it roughly corresponds to just one doctor for every 2000 Indians. This ratio has worsened from one doctor for every 1722 Indians in 2005. In such a situation, making the most of the resources at hand is of utmost importance. Along with huge steps to improve healthcare, smaller steps like Doctorscabin can help improve the bigger picture. There is an ever-growing need to find doctors and fix appointments and this is the pain point Doctorscabin aims at.
According to the CEO of Doctorscabin and healthcare insurance expert, Mini Balaraman, “Many patients in India do not have an easy way to find out which doctors/hospitals provide a particular kind of treatment or have the required facilities for the treatment. Information is gathered majorly through the word-of-the-mouth based on which critical health related decisions are made.” Verily, many deaths in India occur due to drug abuse and general misinterpretation of symptoms. Most of the appointments for the patients are made by a phone call, resulting in loss of transparency and the patients end up losing time after being referred to a not particularly specialized physician.
The lack of transparency that exists in such a situation invariably leads to specialized hospitals unable to reach out to their patients and their services remaining invisible to their prospective patients.
After having spent nearly 14 years in the US healthcare industry, when Mini Balaraman, came back to India, she was in for a shock. “We worked in a set-up where all the information about the healthcare industry and medical practitioners was available on a single platform. However, there was no such concept in India. All information had to be derived from various sources. That’s when I came up with Doctorscabin, a website created to help the patients easily find a doctor or hospital in India and book appointments in a few clicks,” says Balaraman.
Doctorscabin.com is a free service exclusively created to help the patients easily find a doctor or hospital in India at their finger tips and book appointments in few clicks. The patient can search for a doctor or hospital by pin code, city, and state or by treatment specialty. They can understand what type of facilities and services are provided by hospitals, the accreditations the hospital has like NABH, ISO etc., the hospital contact number and timings, the map of exact location where the hospital is located, the detailed information about the doctors working at a hospital including their OP timings. The photos of the hospitals and doctors are provided. Patients can read reviews written by other patients regarding their experience with a particular hospital or doctor. They have the option to share their experience as well. Video of various procedures conducted by the hospitals/doctors are also available. Patients can find out where laboratory tests can be conducted.
Health articles published on Doctorscabin by eminent doctors will help the common man to gain knowledge on those topics. For example doctors share their knowledge and experience about topics such as Common Eye Issues; Tips on eye protection, Urinary track infection, Measures to keep protect your teeth etc. Knowledge sharing among doctor community can help them to reach out to other doctors if needed.
International patients can find out which hospitals in India provide Medical Tourism facilities at a cheaper rate than their home country.
Since its launch in August 2011, Doctorscabin has reached out to the major hospitals in India and they currently have 10,000 doctors and over 700 hospitals registered with them. 70 plus pathological labs across India are also registered with them.
Doctorscabin is headed by Mini Balaraman who has a Masters in Computer Applications and over a decade and a quarter’s US experience in both IT (Sun Microsystems, now Oracle) and Healthcare(Blue Shield of California). Doctorscabin headquartered at Trivandrum has a robust team of Sales, Technical Support and Analytics specialists.
With a plan in place to scale and expand the base, Doctorscabin plans to come up with a several exciting new features. One of the main upcoming features is called “Meet Similar Patients”. Patients having certain conditions/diseases can create and join the community with similar patients. This will help them to interact and share their experiences with others who are going through the same pain as them. It will enable them to see what worked for others and provide a platform for moral support. This module also has some analytical features based on the information provided by the patients- such as the patient can see the percentage of males versus females, by state, by age group who have the disease/condition, number of patients cured/not cured yet. Adding smart phone apps like booking appointments via phone are planned in the coming months.
With the worrisome health issues and a need for health amenities services, Doctorscabin indeed provides a very useful service to the needy.