This Startup Is Reversing The Backlog Of Surgical Work In this COVID era, Glamyo Health has used technology to deliver personalized patient care

COVID-19 is gradually moving towards its end. Now we can think and talk beyond survival. India's medical sector was the centre of attention in the past 18 months. It faced a lot of challenges and pressure during this period but emerged successfully. The Government of India and many homegrown startups are working hard to make the country's healthcare system world class by focusing on digital healthcare, however, the country's vastness and diversity pose serious challenges. Telemedicine has rapidly emerged as a potent solution to these challenges. Making medical facilities available for everyone in a vast and populous country like India will always remain a challenge.

Telemedicine has emerged as an efficient solution to such challenges. It is not a new concept, however until a few years ago it was not very popular as a lot of people were skeptical regarding its success. They were not sure whether they would get a similar diagnosis by a doctor on video or phone call as they would get on a personal visit. The advent of COVID-19, however, turned the tables. During COVID-19, when visiting the doctors personally was not possible, most people started shifting to telemedicine as their only choice. It is during this period that the true potential of telemedicine was realised. Telemedicine not only helps people receive medical attention from the comfort of their homes, it also helps ease the burden on the health care infrastructure. It can also help people in the remotest parts of the country receive consultation from the best doctors available anywhere. The introduction of artificial intelligence in healthcare has removed the constraints of time and place from telemedicine. Most importantly, telemedicine has made healthcare much more affordable than before.

COVID-19 will be around for the foreseeable future and infection rates may fluctuate as public health measures relax. A significant backlog of surgical work is being created in addition to those patients on waiting lists before the present crisis. Retaining an expanded workforce and resources to deal with all of these patients is essential, but illness, fatigue and social issues among healthcare workers all threaten the necessary increase in surgical activity that is needed, this is where Glamyo Health came into being.

Archit Garg and Dr. Preet Thakur worked together at Milestone Religare Private Equity. In 2019, they started meeting frequently to discuss their business ideas. While pursuing the same they identified a huge gap in the electric surgery domain. To do the same, they nurtured the idea of creating a full-stack healthcare company to provide a seamless experience to the patients by fixing the broken healthcare system.

Glamyo Health co-founder Archit Garg told Entrepreneur India, "The healthcare system is riddled with pain points like pricing shock, friction at various touchpoints, lack of accountability, and inferior quality of treatment. We are driven by the belief that it is high time for the medical field to experience the disruption, which will fix all of these at once."

Starting at the end of 2019, the brand has raised in total $3.5 million across two rounds. Seed Round of $0.5 million in February 2020 where Angellist, Angels Investors like Tej, managing partner, Fosun; Dhruv, partner, Sistema; Vivek and Abhay, founders, Licious participated.

The latest being the Series A round of $3 million raised recently in September 2021 with Ananta Capital, Udtara Ventures, and Agility Ventures participating.

The company has said to have had a stupendous growth – and is now present in more than 10 cities namely Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Indore, Bhubaneshwar, Patna. The brand has tie-ups with over 200 hospitals across the country.

Garg believes that elective surgery space was less explored in terms of quality treatment and equipment both. Mostly, the treatments are expensive and only available in tier-I cities. In addition to this, even tier-I cities do not have all the required facilities in place. All this together degrades the quality of the treatment. The company has said to have analyzed the market and facilities for over 6 months. Then they went on to figure out target cities as they embarked on the journey.

The elective surgery market is still very small and nascent in India. It has a huge potential that can be unleashed. This has only multiplied with the pandemic hit. The overall tally of pending requests of surgeries is beyond the capacity of the traditional system. The surgery costs have also gone up due to the shortage of faculty and staff. In a scenario like this, there is a need for more players to first cater to the patients, he shared.

"Some of the major challenges faced by our company include finding the right talent for corporate requirements as there is a lot of competition and price variation in the market, ensuring the right quality of doctors and hospital infrastructure in remote locations and making our brand the best and competitive as we operate in more than 10 cities including tier-II towns also," Garg commented.

In terms of the growth plan, they plan to scale from 10 cities to more than 30 cities, and work with over 600 hospitals, more than 400 surgeons in the next two years, and aim to touch the lives of 100,000 plus patients.