What should this year’s budget focus on when allocating to healthcare?
The federal budget for the 23rd fiscal year allocated 86,200 cr for healthcare across various schemes. This is a slight increase from the previous year’s revised estimate. As for the upcoming budget, we will continue to maintain a large budget as well-established programs such as the National Health Mission and PMSSY form the backbone of public health, improve infrastructure and provide care to the urban poor and rural populations. are considered to be assigned.
The government has done a commendable job in building the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission infrastructure. We look forward to greater adoption with states encouraging citizens to create and use unique health IDs and digital lockers. This will require extensive awareness campaigns by the authorities, resulting in a 5- to 6-fold increase in budget allocations. Also, to ensure accountability, his ABDM usage targets should be set in a framework of outputs and outcomes.
How has the healthcare industry changed in the last year?
In the early days of digital health in India, business models included telephone consultation platforms, e-pharmacies, and service aggregators. They offered little expertise and left one-off customers with huge acquisition costs. Over the last year, more platforms have expanded vertically to provide end-to-end, one-stop his solutions to patient ailments. Patients not only benefit from the ease and convenience of use, they also get better results. Startups benefit from healthier LTV/CAC ratios. Currently, there are more than 200 health tech startups in Japan, building vertically integrated platforms such as diabetes, mental health, and pregnancy.
Major technology companies MAMAA (Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple) are making big moves in health tech. Alphabet’s Google Health partners with Apollo Hospitals to improve diagnostic workflows. We also build solutions that conveniently and accurately detect heart rate, heart murmurs, respiration rate, and heart rate through smartphone cameras. Whatsapp has launched a digital health incubator program and Microsoft is partnering with his AIIMS Jodhpur to drive innovation in digital health.
What aspects should private players focus on in 2023?
Patient Delight – Every healthtech start-up should be obsessed with user delight and strive to significantly improve the experience and clinical outcomes. This helps drive higher lifetime value, retention, and referrals.
Product Market Economic Fit – Product Market Fit is much easier to achieve with unlimited funds than to find it wisely. Going forward, startups will need to balance scale and combustion while ensuring healthy unit economics to win investor confidence and capital. This is not only about scale, but also about survival.
Omnichannel delivery – D2C is giving way to digital-first brands. This is because more and more startups are realizing that combining offline and online distribution can give them access to untapped markets, control customer acquisition costs, and strengthen their brand. For example, Max Healthcare actively promotes his application on mobile, while Pristyn Care has set up his 100+ offline centers.
What is the one healthcare area that needs a push from the government?
Governments should actively integrate startup-built digital health solutions into public health systems. From smart screening tools created by companies like Niramai placed in PHCs and CHCs for early breast cancer diagnosis, to low-cost glucometers and healthcare packages for chronically ill patients from ventures like BeatO. Until you buy, partnerships between healthtech innovators and states democratize access to quality. It cares for the population, especially in remote areas, while at the same time relieving the burden on the current severely overwhelmed public infrastructure. Given that India already has over 930 million internet users, of whom 373 million are from rural areas, the potential impact is even greater. Startups can also benefit from this collaboration as it facilitates access to large greenfield markets that are critical to achieving scale.
What healthcare trends will emerge in 2023?
Startups should either beef up their unit economics or look to consolidation or factory closures. The number of startups closing in 2022 was more than double the number in 2021. This trend is not unique to healthcare, but will impact the sector in tangible ways.
2022 was the year of massive layoffs, with over 18,000 laid off by tech companies and start-ups. At least 2,000 of them were let go by health tech startups. We believe this talent pool with experience in technology, startups and healthcare will choose to build healthcare and expand the space as a founder or senior his leader.
Indian tech companies build products and services to meet the growing global demand for digital solutions from healthcare institutions. These may be non-clinical models or clinical provider-assisted tools.
