My Take on the MiddleEast’s Online Medical Marketplaces

Today with the increasing demand for digital products that help people with almost every aspect of their lives, the rise of online medical services started to pick serious traction in my region.

I’m not going to list the online services in that broad spectrum as I believe that the vast majority of players are focusing solely on solving the problem of connecting patients to doctors. That by definition is a marketplace. Given the very high poverty levels and the lack of proper national insurance programs, the opportunity for these businesses has grown and attracted global and regional investments.

Medical marketplaces have a significant advantage, but it may prove to be insufficient if they focus on connecting patients to doctors only, that is one building block and not finely cemented one, having vertical-specific marketplaces & a true network effect is highly needed. The technology and the pool of doctors alone can be replicated (even if at lower quality) by newcomers.

Good digital products are the ones to solve real-life problems, and in this domain, the problem is not finding a doctor but getting the right treatment and restoring the health. Most of the marketplaces out there are not taking that into considerations. On the other hand, online medical marketplaces is a good start. However, what is missing besides modern legislation and regulation(done by certified domain experts, not business owners or weak governments), “ethical” compliance and nationally-accessible detailed electronic medical history of patients, is a digital Curing-lifecycle.

Curing-lifecycle

Curing-lifecycle

Curing-lifecycle (CLC) is the cornerstone of building the next level of digital medical service, and not to ignore the impact on retention which could potentially result in favorable unit economics.

Capture

For curing-lifecycle to be defined three essential variables need to be collected from doctors after the patient’s visit.

The variables are:
1- Estimated time of treatment (ETT).
2- If the Case Requires a Specialist (CRS).
3- Number of Expected Followup Visits (EFV).

Generate

We need the captured variables to build a mathematically calculable hypothesis. In this case, I am just going to formulate an equation, and this equation will help in generating a score. We will use the score in the follow-up scheme that defines the curing-lifecycle.

Now to better use the captured ETT, CRS and EFV the following equation(hypothesis to generate follow up cycle) is needed

ETT (Expected Time of Treatment)

• Less than a week → 1
• 1 – 3 weeks → 2
• ≥ 3 weeks → 3

CRS (Case Requires a Specialist)

• Yes → 1
• No → 0

EFV (Number of Expected Followup Visits)

• No need → 1
• 1 – 3→ 2
• ≥ 3 → 3

CLC (Curing life-cycle) score = ETT + (CRS * EFV). As a result, a number from 1 - 6 will show up. Higher numbers meaning the higher possibility/value of the service to the patient.

Send

• The communication channel is Email and/or SMS and/or Push notification.
• Landing pages and deep-links has to be implemented.
• Authentication and authorization have to be seamless. Through tokenization or whatever technique.
• Localization (in the case of operating in multiple countries) of messages has to be carefully written & considered based on the locals.

Calculate

• Notification delivery rate = Notifications delivered/ Notifications sent.
• Notification open rate = Opens uniques / Notifications delivered.
• Notification open to click rate = Clicks on CTA/ Opens uniques.
• Effectiveness per CLC Score= each score and its open rate and triggered new service request.

Closure

The real value of the online medical marketplaces comes from increased engagement, and that will directly result in improving the service. If that is tackled then we might witness the next level of online medical services.

A strategy could look something like:

• Structure a minimum base of verticals that have a high retention nature, pregnancy/labor, chronic diseases, seasonal diseases.
• Create curing life-cycle for the verticals above.
• Offer patients both free and premium services that increase the value

Free services, such as:

• Medical documents & diagnosis archival.
• Medicine alarm and notifications to you and the ones taking care of you.
• Pregnancy tracker and calendar of physical visits.
• Babies vaccination schedule and locations.

Premium services:

• Request a second opinion virtual or physical.
• Schedule a follow-up session.
• Book an appointment with a specialty doctor.
• Facilitate operations, hospital, accommodation, etc..
• Request in-house nursing.

Potential business verticals

• Sign Up companies & their employees for sick leave policy
• Video call assessment.
• Sick leave notice sent to the employer verified by the service provider to the employer.

There is a lot of potential in my region, and it is up for grabs. Only if the marketplace developers focus on the real value rather than just attracting more investments and pumping up happy/sellable numbers.

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