Start-ups in health care: challenges
I believe that the biggest challenges that innovative start-ups, especially AI power start-ups, are currently facing in the health care domain are that there is still a lack of policies and directions from the government or government agencies around many topics. Many healthcare start-ups are working in Silo. Doctors don’t know how tech works, and techs don’t know how the medical domain works, and then policymakers sometimes don’t have a medical background, and they don’t know how to come up with good policies. . So policy makers, doctors, engineers and then insurance companies, who pay, although they are not very well known players in India, are playing a role. The payer, the patient and the provider, who is the doctor and the policy maker, are not in harmony in our country, resulting in policy paralysis and lack of implementation. And it disappoints start-ups because they create solutions but don’t know where to go with it. I think that’s one of the biggest challenges.Health Care Start-ups: Way Forward
I think the way forward is that the government will now have to come up with implementation policies. There was a lot of inspiration and a lot of young stars jumped into the start-up bandwagon, this was the impulse and it was good, it was needed. But now the time has come when we need policies around implementation. And I think the key solutions would be, No. 1, the government needs to encourage local bureaucracies to come up with start-ups in their own geographic domain. And that would be a huge trigger for the local level of start-ups. Second, I believe that motivation for innovative start-ups should increase. Right now, as I said, we’re more focused on telemedicine and software-based, rule-based systems. While, Western AI-powered solutions, 3D bio prints, focus on genetic engineering and this type of start-up needs a lot of motivation, a lot of research-oriented mindset, a lot of high IQ intelligent, educated people need to get started. Have. Coming up for start-up. Professors from educational institutions will have to come into the startup and then invest a lot of capital for sure because as I said this will have to do a lot of experimentation. I think to implement start-up solutions, policies around creating a payment system for start-ups where start-ups feel more secure that the government will pilot with them and then definitely capital infusion and research-oriented startups need to have special policies around them. Is. . It will definitely help the startup ecosystem in our country.
The idea behind ZINI and GRAINPAD
This started when I was still doing an internship in my medical school days. That’s when the trigger started. We were posted as interns in different departments. I was working with my professor in pediatrics and he was a very famous doctor in that field. And I would be sitting in his OPD and my job as an intern was basically to heap a stack of lists so that the patient could go to him in the right order. Every day I saw more than 150 patients and saw her between the ages of 9 and 3 and it definitely included children and older women who bring their children and patients from all over the state. And I see that they will come from such a long distance and they will hardly take 30 seconds of their time and they will not be able to fully explain what is wrong with them. And sometimes older women forget to say something and then once they go out they can’t go back. And I was observing this and I didn’t feel right. And this was a kind of seed but I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t have the technique, I wanted to do something but I didn’t know what to do.
When I came to private medical practice I worked in private hospitals, I also did my own OPD. So, there I observed that coming to the hospital is usually the last resort for the patient, such as when nothing else works and their choice is to go to a local quack, go to a local chemist and save money, save time and who will. Go to the doctor and spend so much time and money and all that and once they come to the doctor, they still can’t be sure that they will get a satisfactory answer or a satisfactory time. Even according to a WHO study, we give an average of 2 minutes 20 seconds per patient in India. This is average, so many patients should get less than this. This basically inspired me to create some kind of system where patients get the right advice from the beginning.
ZINI and take history
ZINI has an AI powered history that considers pods to be very technical. And from what we’ve created, ZINI is an AI-powered communication agent capable of automating this process. Only a qualified doctor in human history so far can do this. And because he discovered this, we can guide the patient, you need to go here and get checked and come back to me and follow this initial treatment route.
ZINI automates this process. We have invented a boat that is powered by data based learning and lots of inputs from about 50 doctors and engineers and is able to communicate fully with the patient, guide the patient on what is probably wrong with his AI powered brain and guide the patient on what the probable diagnosis might be. Maybe, how urgent the situation is, what kind of specialist is most suitable for them, where they can go to the nearest doctor or hospital, what kind of examination can be ordered and much more educational material to read. So, this is not a doctor’s replacement but this is an intelligent engine that can be the first contact and guide for the common man. Besides this it has also found application in B2B domain where hospitals and telemedicine companies are using it. Platform for collecting initial information about the patient. Insurance companies are basically using it to automate the underwriting process. So, a lot of applications have come from the original idea of ZINI.
ZINI Clinic and future plans
So, in the future, we are very inspired and excited about the new concept we have brought, it is called ZINI Clinic. Recently we were awarded 5M Transformation Grand by HDFC Bank to support this initiative. So, it is an AI powered boat to take in a clinic Patient history, There is a nurse for critical monitoring of patients and the AI system usually generates an initial report which is shared with a remotely seated doctor who talks again, video talks with the patient and then sends a signed prescription. Therefore, this model is basically not entirely dependent on the available 24X7 human document but at the same time it has some bridging component that can connect with the doctor in addition to providing support guidance. This is a new initiative that we are experimenting with and seeing a very good positive response. We are working with insurance companies and telemedicine companies, as I said, they are looking for applications using ZINI to collect basic information of patients and then use that data for all kinds of benefits to patients as well as their organization. And we are eager to publish our research, we have been doing a lot of research with our findings so far in the last 3-4 years. We want to work on publishing that research.
The future of health care
In general, I see that the future of healthcare in the coming days will be very radical because ZINI itself is automating part of its conversation when a doctor makes a preliminary examination of symptoms. There is an Israeli startup that has printed the whole rabbit heart in 3D. So, you can print human organs and it will be I don’t know where aging will go from there. Elon Musk created a robot that could perform brain surgery on pigs completely without human intervention. So, I see a lot of revolutions happening, from the initial assessment of symptoms to the investigation and the printing of human organs. I want to see a lot like this in India too but let’s see what we get out of here. The healthcare sector as a whole has a lot to offer in the next 10 to 20 years.
