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Digital healthcare in the country is going to witness exponential growth in the next five years and there is a long way to go for the sector and companies in this space, Practo Co-founder and CEO Shashank ND said on Sunday. Healthcare as an overall sector in India is close to $200 billion in size and just a single digit of it is online today, he added.
"I expect that this single digit will grow into 20-30 percent in the next 5-10 years and that is going to be a real big jump for the sector," Shashank told PTI.
Digital adoption in healthcare is still very small, and 90 percent of healthcare is still offline today. So for the companies like Practo, there is a long way to go, he added.
Healthcare is a very complex industry from a consumer's standpoint. The consumer is already in a lot of pain and in a high-level of anxiety. "We are trying to make sure that healthcare for the user becomes a simple affair, no matter where he is in the country,... he can access healthcare services on our app," Shashank said.
Thanks to learnings from COVID, there is more integration of offline and online healthcare. Lots of healthcare establishments are going online. The government has also been active and with initiatives such as National Digital Health Mission (NDHM), it is encouraging the adoption of digital tools in healthcare, he added.
"For companies like Practo and many others in the sector, there is no looking back here on. Now it is about providing more value, about making patients' lives better," Shashank said.
Practo has around one lakh doctors on its platform of which 25,000 provide online consultations, he added.