From reminder to pop the pill to in-house doctors, mTatva seeks to personalise healthcare

What do you do when you forget to take your medicines? Put a reminder on your phone or ask your family members or friends to give you a reminder? mTatva, a primary healthcare IT firm which launched its app HealthPIE in September 2015 will soon be launching Pillbox, which will send a reminder to patients about their medicine intake. [caption id=“attachment_2719198” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Screengrab[/caption] mTatva will not manufacture the box, which will be synchronized with the app through Bluetooth so that every time the patient takes the medicine, the app will record it, says Baljit Singh, Founder and CEO. If the medicine is not taken, the app will send a reminder. The company has around 3 percent people in the Middle East using the app, besides around 2 per cent in the US,too. Another product in the pipeline is real-time patient doctor consultation with an in-house doctor on the app to answer any queries from patients. This is expected to be launched in six months time.  “The possibilities of doing a lot for patient healthcare is enormous,” says Singh. The primary healthcare IT firm was set up in April 2013 by two IIT Delhi graduates, Singh and Pravin Prakash - Co Founder and CTO, with 50 percent of their personal savings and the remaining from angel funds. “We started mTatva out of a need to plug the gap between need for healthcare facilities and what was available in the sector for the affected,” says Singh. Prakash, his IIT classmate, comes from a family of doctors and knows the environment up close. The company’s focus is to minimize medical errors (through difficult-to-read medical prescriptions and wrong medicines given by pharmacists), solve medical compliance issues and make patients aware of the medicines prescribed to them. How does it work? Smartphone users can download the app and it is ready for use. Singh says that medical reports can be uploaded and the app provides medication reminders for the entire family, stores the family’s health charts like vaccination charts, and also sends reminders and alerts if a medication or a visit to the doctor is missed. There is an SMS facility for patients in hospitals where the HealthPIE decodes the doctor’s prescription. The app is available in Hindi and English with the former being most popular in Delhi, Lucknow. Plans are afoot to use regional languages to make the app consumer-friendly, says Singh. The company has over one lakh consumers using the platform, three lakhs in hospitals and has sent 12 million reminders to patients, says Singh. There is medical literature on the app which helps patients know more about diseases, lifestyle changes to be adopted besides health and nutrition care. It has been getting traction for Dr Alerts on the app where the doctor can monitor the progress of the patient and advise accordingly. Revenue model The revenues come from from B2B offerings. The hospitals and clinics where mTatva provides solutions pay them on a per patient visit basis. The company plans to have 700 lakh consumers on its app by end of year.