OnDoctor - Online Healthcare Consultation App

by

Htet Zan Linn | Jul 28, 2020 | in Digital change-maker challenge | ICT applications

Define three specific objectives that you would like to achieve with your proposal.

• Health Literacy: OnDoctor would like to create awareness of primary and preventive healthcare through engaging content pushed through OnDoctor app in local language. Everyone who has access to internet and smartphone should have access to free healthcare and hygiene literacy. Ideally that would mean all smartphone users with access to internet in Myanmar should have OnDoctor app.

•  Accessibility: It should be easy for anyone to get in touch with General Physician or Specialist for consultations and advise regardless of them living in rural or urban areas. It is the goal of OnDoctor to reduce the financial, emotional and time burden thrust upon someone for a visit to a GP or Specialists for essential primary healthcare in Myanmar. (As of now OnDoctor focus is on connected patients i.e. patients with smartphone with access to internet).  

• Affordability: Primary healthcare should be affordable for all regardless of their financial status. Often scared by the consultation fees or intimidated by anxiety of visiting a doctor or healthcare centre many in poorer and rural community avoid seeking medical advice in earlier stage of disease increasing chances to developing more serious medical complications. OnDoctor’s goal is to relief them from this mindset. Users can subscribe to daily, weekly and monthly privilege to have unlimited direct instant messaging with doctors for costs as low as MMK 120 / day (USD 00.08 /day)               

What problems (particularly in value chain competitiveness and global disruption) are your community’s stakeholders facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic?

The major disruption brought by COVID 19 pandemic in the healthcare community was in mobility and in person visit. The solution we are proposing is apt for the situation as it is meant to reduce mobility and in person visit.

Particularly patients were in need of accurate information and health and hygiene literacy. An example of how health literacy in local language can be helpful is the song that OnDoctor prepared with Ministry of Health and Sports of Myanmar in local language.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAMKh9p7sm0

Other immediate problems were in shortage of medical resources like sanitisers, face masks, PPE etc. which been brought under control.

What minimum viable solution(s) are you proposing to address the challenge(s) in your community?

OnDoctor 2.0 is at its infancy. Launched on 4th March 2020 the app is testing its capability to deliver healthcare literacy as well as teleconsultation. Currently doctors and hospitals in Yangon are testing its chat and video features. Over 30,000 users who have downloaded the app get access to free healthcare literacy content that includes articles, photo tips, videos etc.  

What can the app do?   

• OnDoctor Chatroom: Realtime DIM with Doctors:

Users can subscribe to daily, weekly and monthly privilege to have unlimited direct instant messaging with doctors for costs as low as MMK 120 / day (USD 00.08 /day)

• Stores notes on treatment plans, follow-ups, allergies and other clinical notes:

Doctors are able to take simple notes on the treatment plan and history of the patients, any follow-up needed and allergies he/she might have.      

• Premium Chatroom: DIM and Video with Doctors:

Users can appoint doctors (specialists) for chat and video for minor consultations without the need to visit them at the hospital.  

• Articles and Knowledge Center:

Written by doctors (in local language, Burmese) and curated by a team of digital media professionals the content is freely accessible to anyone who has downloaded the app. Content are clearly divided in categories like Women Health, Men Health, Childcare, OB-GYN, etc. Additional information on symptoms, medicines and medical terms are also available.

• Multiple payment options:

In a country where more than 70% of population is unbanked, payment needs to be simple and accessible. OnDoctor app allows users to pay the bill through multiple options including mobile phone top-ups, mobile payment providers and direct bank transfers.    

Share your story (your narrative)

This idea and application are built taking Myanmar into the context. It is our understanding that the application and the idea can be used in many emerging economies where healthcare infrastructure is lagging and significant population have access to internet and smart phone.

The healthcare system in Myanmar faces a myriad of challenges. Of these, shortage of medical doctors, lack of accessibility and out of pocket cost related to healthcare directly affect the least fortunate and the most vulnerable members of the society. Myanmar is ranked 190th in the World Health Organisation efficiency chart which highlights the severity of the situation on the grounds.

Visiting a medical facility for consultation has several direct and indirect cost associated. While the doctor’s fee is easy to calculate, other related cost is more complex to calculate. Among them are the time and cost of travel, cost of missing the work due to long waiting hours associated to the visits, time and cost of caretakers incases of infants and elders, mental anxiety associated with planning the visits etc. Additionally, for specific diseases that are difficult to talk about in conservative Myanmar like mental health, STDs and OB-GYN where patients are often stigmatised the visit to a medical centre is even more difficult. With DIM (direct instant messaging) and video conferencing services, consultations can be done virtually avoiding time spent or the cost and mental distress associated with the visit to medical centres.

50% of Myanmar population has unique mobile subscription (Telenor group, 2018) and 90% have access to 3G+4G network (Telenor group 2018). By 2030 this number will have increased and it would not be a mistake to assume that almost all living in Myanmar will have access to app-based services like OnDoctor.

In this scenario people living in urban and rural area regardless of physical healthcare infrastructure should get access to basic primary and preventive healthcare information that is related to them (local context) and easy to understand (local language). Whether the first-time mother gave birth to her child in a hospital in Yangon or her home in remote Kachin village, whether she is educated or not, she should know what are the basic hygiene issues she should be careful about for her and her newborn. What nutrition available locally she should take or avoid and what she should do when she faces incidents that are out of ordinary. This is just an example; it should be the same for someone who went through a surgery or someone who was diagnosed with a H5N1, or more recently with COVID19

A person’s question, curiosity, doubt or even just enthusiasm about their health, hygiene, nutrition or body should not be a privilege of the few but available to all regardless of their age, sex, wealth and geographical location.  

In a country like Myanmar, where the doctor to population ratio is 5000:1 increasing the productivity of the doctors by providing them with tool and opportunity to earn extra income translates to thousands of people getting access to healthcare advise and material that would have otherwise not been possible. By having more people into the platform we would have the opportunity to learn how to use the data available to us and integrate chatbots, artificial intelligence and other technological miracles into our platform to advance our cause of providing primary and preventive healthcare all the while providing secondary source of income to doctors and medical professionals.                       

In the “Myanmar Sustainable Development Plan (2018 – 2030)” published by the Ministry of Planning and Finance of Myanmar, the government has outlined 9 action plans that aims at “Improved quality of health services” and Strengthened supply of human resources needed for equitable and effective delivery of services and interventions” as its strategic outcomes. By aligning ourselves closely to these action plans, we will benefit from government’s investment in the sector and be able to do our part in supporting those goals.

In absence of proper regulatory framework for data privacy and teleconsultation, OnDoctor has to rely on its own SOP (Standard Operating Practices) and code of conducts on maintaining data and privacy of the users. OnDoctor has submitted its SOPs to the related authority (Myanmar Medical Council) to inform them of our practices and engaged with them to help create a regulatory framework that serves the interest of patients and businesses alike.

OnDoctor’s vision is to be inclusive and technology driven platform to provide primary and preventive healthcare advice and literacy. It will do so by enhancing productivity and income for doctors and healthcare providers and aligning its strategies to that of the government’s investment plans.

Please provide any additional relevant information that you would like to share.

OnDoctor was established by founders Dr. Htet Zan Linn and Dr. Su Mon Mon Tun. 

In 2016, while travelling, Dr. Linn slipped and fell in washroom. Already late at night, and alone he was unable bring himself to the medical centre. A doctor himself, he knew the pain was beyond normal injury and ignoring it could lead to more serious internal injury. He could pass out and no one would know. Searching for a professional help he scoured the web for advice and got excellent service from https://www.lybrate.com/ and second opinion from https://www.doctorondemand.com/ . It was at that moment he thought that being an educated doctor he was able to do this, so what about the millions of others in Myanmar who cannot read or write English and cannot surf internet. Bugged by this, he setup a facebook page together with Dr. Su Mon and invited people to ask medical questions to see the reaction. The result was an overwhelming flood of questions that kept coming. Being an entrepreneur, he started to think about a business model that would make it possible for the operation to be continued. He was determined to keep the service free or affordable for the users and devise other source of revenue to sustain the operation. He and Dr. Su Mon setup a company and started hiring freelance service from friends who were medical doctors. In the beginning all the questions were answered exclusively through facebook messenger so the page quickly attracted followers. Using the volume of followers, OnDoctor page could turn itself to be an advertising platform earning advertising revenue from health and pharmaceutical companies and stores.  Later the OnDoctor 1.0 app was developed for android devices with simple Direct Instant Messaging(DIM) services. In March, 2020 OnDoctor 2.0 was launched. OnDoctor currently has over 1.5 million followers in its facebook and over 30,000 active users on its app. It generates revenue from service fees, advertisements and medical campaigns.         

Your Final Proposal for challenge

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