Formed with the sole objective to be a child’s health support system, the countries first digital network of pediatricians’, The Pediatric Network is aiming to develop network of around 5000 pediatricians from across the country while offering preventive cure and engage parents in wholesome manner about children’s health through its app. The app is constantly working towards making it more user friendly to member with value addition. It is also trying to develop the platform for older populations which also require constant preventive healthcare. Thus talking about the formation of the network from the sole objective to the number of pediatricians on board to leveraging the technology and its future plans, Dr Atish Laddad, Pediatrician, Founder Member, The Pediatric Network spoke to Wellnessindia.com.
What led you to form The Pediatric Network?
The ideas of launching such an initiative came in my clinic while observing that Indian parents are very sensitive and reactive in terms of children’s health. When there is health issue with the child, people visit the clinic, but due to huge pressure of number of children patients coming to the clinic, pediatrician can address them only for five to ten min. I thought when the children come to the clinic we should not only talk about their illness, but also about their growth, nutrition and many such aspects for complete health. This results into preventive health measure which ultimately helps in educating the parents about children’s health. Further I thought that we can use technology to educate the parents and touch all the pain points seamlessly while engaging with the children. Simultaneously I thought of making this technology available for the entire pediatric community.
What solution are you providing?
We are bringing parents on board and taking care of their children with the help of technology. It’s not about curing illness, but offering preventive cure and educating parents. In India around 80 percent children under the age of 5 are iron deficient and similar percentage of children have dental cavities, but there is not step taken in that direction. Because, generally the pediatricians have not been able to involve parents into child psyche and not guiding them, instead they are just treating specific diseases. My entire aim is to engage parents in wholesome manner while avoiding misses and misconceptions.
We are not doing online consultation here but we are trying to create a support system with educating parents about what is right and wrong about children’s health.
How many pediatricians do you have on board and what is your revenue model?
We have close to 250 -300 pediatricians onboard from across 100 cities and tier III and IV towns. Overall in India there are 26,000 pediatricians and we are targeting at least 5000 of them. Also we have 5000 plus paid members and close to 1 lakh parents using our app.
For pediatricians we have different business model where we charge them for every year. For parents we have a different business model and for schools we have a completely different business model where we charge them for entire engagement. We also have advertising platform for brands and stuff like that. Initially we invested close to Rs 1.5cr to 2 cr in the venture and had an intent of becoming a bootstrap venture from a long time.
Please tell us about the value proposition that you are offering?
Nobody wants to go on the app and work. It is definitely the value proposition that brings parents on app. On the app for parents we have everything that they are looking for. Each and every member of the network adds value to the app. It is user friendly app that comes in all native languages. Once parents come to the clinic they can get connected to the app.
All our prescriptions go on pediatrician’s specific app then it lands on the patient’s mobile app. With this app we give 24X7 responses to the parents who call helpline. We do digitization of health records. We have growth chart, milestone analogy and comprehensive library being written and edited by expert pediatricians from all over the country. We proactively warn parent’s about outbreaks to occur. Parents can also book appointments with pediatricians. Soon we can offer online consultation. We are getting good traction from rural and urban costumers.
It’s a free app but we charge for two to three services, one of them is 24x7 helpline service for which we charge around Rs 500 per year. Apart from that we also charge for manual digitization of health records and access to certain parts of library.
What is your target age group?
We cater to less than five year old. For that age group parents are more sensitized and worried. We are also trying to develop the platform for older populations. They require more of preventive healthcare front like they have stool and obesity issues. For less than five years old it’s more about infections.
Which different tools you have for pediatricians and parents?
We have developed tech tools for doctors and tech tools for parents. The value addition is being done for the pediatricians like we don’t give vaccine reminder but the vaccine information with the reminders to the pediatricians.
How do you look at schools as vital platform for The Pediatric Network?
In the process we have also found that school is the one area where preventive healthcare is out of the window. School is the platform where they can implement guidelines for preventive healthcare very efficiently because they have a huge database with them. This is how we have got all the partners on board like pediatricians, parents and schools along with value addition for each of them.
What are your future plans?
In the next six months we will have more number of doctors onboard. We will be focusing only on the pediatric domain for the next one year. We are going to do health quality rating for schools because we want to get them on board. For pediatricians our focus is core tech and tech to come up with different solutions.
