Healthcare app Practo buys Qikwell to facilitate hospital appointments

New Delhi: Healthcare startup Practo on Thursday said it has acquired Qikwell, a company that facilitates appointment scheduling at hospitals, for an undisclosed amount. The buyout makes Practo the world’s largest appointment booking platform with nearly 40 million appointments managed every year, it said in a statement. [caption id=“attachment_2444468” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AFP[/caption] With the acquisition, Practo will get a product that provides smooth appointment booking, significantly reduced waiting time as well as contactless payment at hospital, it added. “This is our fourth acquisition in the last 5 months. We continue our mission to help simplify and digitise healthcare globally and make Practo your health app,” Practo founder and CEO Shashank ND said. Over the coming months, Practo will continue its aggressive expansion and build the world’s leading healthcare technology platform, he added. Practo bought Fitho (digital fitness solution) in April, followed by Genii in July and Insta Health earlier this month. The key proprietary technologies and algorithms of Qikwell help synchronise patients, doctors and front office staff at hospital to reduce the average wait time by over three times, resulting in a much better consumer experience as well as better optimisation of hospital operations. Practo will use this technology to improve the booking experience across its entire platform. Launched in 2011 by Krishna Prasad Chitrapura and Raghavendra Prasad TS, Qikwell on Thursday has over 100 employees and offers hospital appointment scheduling for 250 hospitals in 19 cities. Qikwell will continue to be led by the founders. Its clients include marquee hospitals like Manipal, Fortis, Cloudnine, Narayana Hrudalaya, among others. It also has over 6,000 doctors including pediatricians, gynaecologists and neurologists on its platform. With presence in India, the Philippines and Singapore, Bengaluru-based Practo has a team of 1,500 employees. Last month, Practo had raised $90 million (around Rs 574 crore) from a group of investors, including Tencent, Google Capital and Sequoia India. So far, it has raised $125 million, one of the largest funding in the digital healthcare space. PTI