The world is moving online. While the online shopping is becoming quite a rage, various other services like booking hotels, flights, cabs, finding good apartments for hiring and so on, all these facilities are now available online. The benefit of this is that it saves time and gives convenience as we can now do so much from the comfort of our home.
At such a time, the medical services too couldn't (and shouldn't) lag behind. A few months ago, I wrote about a website that helps in finding doctors and booking appointments and an app that makes hospitalization easy. Let me now tell you about an online service that actually has the doctors available online. This is Doctor Insta. It claims to be India's first 'video medicine' company.
Doctor Insta, for a fixed price, connects the patient to a doctor. The consultation is carried out through audio/video conversation. For the patients' assurance, the website clearly mentions the qualification and experience of its various doctors. Doctor Insta assures of being able to provide treatment within 30-40 minutes, no matter where you are. If you are able to connect to internet, you can see a doctor.
Since the doctors connect with patients using audio/video tools, the medical care at Doctor Insta can be accessed any time, any day. Doctor Insta also has standard pricing for the consultation fees of the doctors and stringent QA/QC policies.
Speaking at the launch, Amit Munjal, Co-Founder & CEO, Doctor Insta said, "I want everyone in India to have access to quality healthcare anytime of the day and anywhere they want. I really hope that by providing Instant Healthcare access, we can increase Average Indian's lifespan by 10 years and productivity of the nation by 15-20%. I take great pride in the fact that Doctor Insta is a triple bottom line company with positive impact on People (Better Health) and Planet first (Lower Carbon Footprint) & then Profits for the investors"
I'm not quite sure how eager people would be to see doctors through only audio/video consultations. As of now, the concept feels too new.
Such audio/video medical aid can help people in remote regions, especially villages that are far from any hospital. But how many people there know the use of internet?
In cities though, very busy professionals might resort to such services occasionally. Some might even use it to seek a second opinion. Also, people might reach out to Doctor Insta for psychological complaints etc. In fact, that might prove to be a big help to patients who feel they need a counsellors help but are too embarrassed to go see a Psychiatrist.
I do think that although online medical services might not find a wide user-base at the present, they will gain more adoption with time. As our life gets busier and busier and as we become even more dependent on internet to satisfy our everyday needs, such online medical care services will become a necessity too.
For more information about Doctor Insta, visit: www.doctorinsta.com
