Onward Health - Empowering Patients with better Compliance to Health Measures
After Dinesh Koka's mother returned home post her knee-cap replacement surgery, he noticed how she was struggling to abide by the instructions mentioned in the dozen discharge sheets. Running through the sheets to take different medications during different hours of the day, right exercises and food, keeping complete track of vitals such as sugar and blood pressure and several other instructions were only adding to the stress and anxiety that post-surgery patients should clearly avoid. Dinesh's mother experience is shared by almost every other patient in the country. Fortunately, Dinesh is a seasoned Medical Technology professional with experience spanning 15 years. Early research quickly revealed that close to 60 percent of all surgeries conducted in major cities are for outstation patients. Imagine the plight of these patients entrusted with such heaps of special instructions and the energy invested while commuting to distant hospitals for minor complications. Soon Dinesh embarked on the mission to enhance patients' ability to understand and remain in adherence to the doctor's instructions and at the same time enable physicians and hospitals save time and increase productivity while delivering enhanced healthcare outcomes. He is doing this with the patient engagement and adherence platform, Onward Health which he founded in 2016. Onwards Health enables patients to understand and follow the doctor's instructions on a timely basis and notifies them against follow up tests and check-ups on time. To doctors, those the two major concern areas "“ patients not taking their required dose of medicines on time, and not reporting back for the follow-up tests and reviews at the prescribed time.
The platform provides a dashboard which summarizes the overall view of the patient's health, thereby enabling them to keep track of the patient's health details and also check the patient's level of adherence to the various given instructions.
Many times the doctors may also wish to make changes to the current healthcare plan, such as prescribing different medications or assigning other tests to the patients. At present, such changes demand the face-to-face communication in the form of follow up meetings between the stakeholders. Onward facilitates such changes by enabling the physician to make suggestions in the comments section of the platform.
As a result of the features that Onward Health brings into the marketplace, what we see is a significant reduction in the number of unnecessary or minor follow up meetings and reduction of stress on the patient's part and the additional time spent and energy on the physician's part. However, the CEO clarifies that the app doesn't attempt to replace physical meetings but only seeks to fill the gap where a follow-up meeting isn't necessary.
Currently available in Hindi, English and Telugu, the platform delivers an intuitive and user-friendly interface that can be used by technologically challenged patients as well. In fact, Onward Health brings in the capability to engage patients irrespective of whether one has a smartphone or a simple handset.
Onwards Health is in the process of adding telemedicine capabilities and is also looking to integrate IoT and analytics abilities. Dinesh Koka views technology as a key element that can work wonders in the delivery of healthcare services and hopes Onward Health can emerge as one such technology delivering a huge impact.
As a result of the features that Onward Health brings into the marketplace, what we see is a significant reduction in the number of unnecessary or minor follow up meetings and reduction of stress on the patient's part and the additional time spent and energy on the physician's part. However, the CEO clarifies that the app doesn't attempt to replace physical meetings but only seeks to fill the gap where a follow-up meeting isn't necessary.
Onwards Health enables patients to understand and follow the doctor's instructions on a timely basis and notifies them against follow up tests and check-ups on time
Currently available in Hindi, English and Telugu, the platform delivers an intuitive and user-friendly interface that can be used by technologically challenged patients as well. In fact, Onward Health brings in the capability to engage patients irrespective of whether one has a smartphone or a simple handset.
Onwards Health is in the process of adding telemedicine capabilities and is also looking to integrate IoT and analytics abilities. Dinesh Koka views technology as a key element that can work wonders in the delivery of healthcare services and hopes Onward Health can emerge as one such technology delivering a huge impact.
