Progetan aims to transform healthcare using SaaS

By M H Ahssan

The firm believes that the SaaS based model is the right prescription for curing the critical issues of Indian healthcare.

While large hospital chains and clinics have the capability to invest heavily in IT and benefit from it, the smaller clinics and hospitals in India have seldom used information technology to their advantage. The cost of investing in hardware and software has been a big deterrent towards automation.

Can SaaS which has changed the way software is delivered and consumed, change the dynamics of the Indian healthcare industry too? Progetan, an ambitious company specializing in the healthcare domain, believes that SaaS holds tremendous potential to transform the Indian healthcare industry.

“The healthcare industry has not taken advantage of IT as the manufacturing or financial sectors have,” says Guruprasad Sowle, Founder, Progetan. Sowle says that the speed and quality of healthcare is based on the ability of the medical fraternity to access world class back office support systems.

Understanding that smaller hospitals or clinics do not have the capability to invest in IT, Progetan has devised a SaaS based practice management solution that bundles voice, data, coding, billing, receivable management, IT support and Accounting. As this solution is offered on a pay-per-use SaaS model, Sowle says that smaller firms can cut their infrastructure costs by more than 70 percent. Efficiency too improves significantly as smaller hospitals and clinics benefit from using standardized data and processes.

When hospitals or doctors sign up for this service, Progetan ensures day-to-day support activities, including appointment setting, billing, patient monitoring and medical transcription. Using this service, doctors can even provide web based support to their patients in any location. As a patient’s case history is archived and stored online, specific cases can be referred to by doctors to deliver more effective personalized healthcare services to patients. As the network of doctors, clinics and hospital chains grow on Progetan’s network, Sowle says that this virtual community will be able to interact collaboratively with each other and provide critical advice to their peers.

Progetan is also actively using social networking technologies to create more effective relationships between doctors and their patients. “We utilize electronic communication tools such as Facebook and Twitter to inform patients about health alerts, prescription reminders, and other important information,” explains Sowle.

Using the Progetan platform as a base, a virtual medical community can be created which is always accessible to patients. For example, if a particular cardiologist is not available in a particular hospital or region, a hospital chain may contact Progetan’s call center and ask it to help it find an alternative doctor who has equal or more expertise. The firm already has a significant team of doctors who have expertise in different specialties, and Sowle says depending on the need, this can be scaled up as required.