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Smart Doctor Provides Immediate Medical Attention

Christian Rivera - Smart Doctor
CEO
Home > Health > View from the Top

Smart Doctor Provides Immediate Medical Attention

Javier Sánchez Serrano - Smart Doctor
Business Developer
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STORY INLINE POST

Miriam Bello By Miriam Bello | Senior Journalist and Industry Analyst - Wed, 01/26/2022 - 12:18

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Q: What differentiates Smart Doctor from other health platforms in Latin America?

CR: The primary difference of Smart Doctor is its vision. The Mexican health sector is highly fragmented. We created Smart Doctor to address this problem. Smart Doctor is an ecosystem focused on health and well-being that addresses common matters such as mental health and nutrition but also chronic illnesses, such as obesity, hypertension and thyroid diseases. We are gradually providing coverage for all diseases to truly be a single system that provides everything, up to pharmacies and laboratories. We want to be an end-to-end solution.

Q: What key elements make Smart Doctor a professional telemedicine platform?

CR: Healthtech startups must have a medical professional onboard. As a medical professional, I have observed that many Healthtech services have not adapted to their needs. Also, medical education does not include a single course on digital health. For many doctors, it seems like a language they do not speak.

Smart Doctor is completely different. It was built by doctors and developers and later shared with 10 medical professionals, then with 50, then with 100. It was then opened to doctors from the public and private sectors. The reason doctors are attracted to the platform is because it was created by them and for them.

Q: What alliances have been key for Smart Doctor to offer a professional, functional medtech service?

CR: We are an omnipresent, on-screen medical support that provides constant help. Of those who visit an ER, 90-95 percent do not face an actual emergency; they only want a quick service. However, they are creating congestion in a system built for those who truly need emergency care. The health sector is inefficient because there is no middle responder to diagnose the severity of the problem. Smart Doctor is targeting that middle market between hospital care and self-medication.

Q: Smart Doctor allows physicians and patients to chat before a medical consultation. How is the chat kept professional?

CR: Medically, professionals previously only had the option to communicate through WhatsApp, which is not very professional. There was a great deal of confusion over whether those communications were consultations or not and if medical professionals should charge for them. Smart Doctor has a chat app where doctors can analyze a problem and determine if the patient can wait for a visit or must go to the ER. In non-emergencies, it also allows doctors to decide when to respond. If they are not in office, they can choose not to respond immediately. But if there is an emergency, they can choose to respond.

JS: From the point of view of a patient, whenever they do not feel well, they would usually go to a hospital and look for a specialist. With Smart Doctor, they can find a variety of specialists. Patients write to them and the doctor determines whether they can help or point them to the ER. If they cannot redirect a patient, the latter can contact customer service, which will survey the medical team and find the correct specialist. One of the main issues for users is that they do not know where to start, so the platform helps them figure that out.

Q: How do you engage patients and doctors after they join the platform?

CR: The largest healthtech companies in the world have large customer service and engagement teams. A customer services area is necessary because the app lacks a human touch; a customer service representative provides a follow-up. All of our consultations have a follow-up questionnaire because we are measuring what worked and what could have been better, among other feedback.

JS: From the patient’s point of view, hospitals and clinics are the worst places to be. They feel that no one listens or understands them. Hospitals make patients wait because there are other patients ahead of them in line. Through Smart Doctor, the patient feels cared for and listened to, which ensures they will come back.

Q: How do you protect data from cyberattacks?

CR: We safeguard the data, which belongs to the client. Smart Doctor uses micro-servers to manage information for different services. Customer data is saved across several servers. Our encryption protects that information and even if a hacker accesses it, the information will be scattered. If a customer wants to leave, we provide them with a file containing all their information.

Q: How are you expanding your service reach, particularly in Mexico?

JS: Smart Doctor in Peru has a grounded ecosystem with well-defined partners and mature operations. In Mexico, we have conducted some studies to analyze B2C and the app’s reception by the local population. We observed that Mexico is behind Peru in telemedicine. Mexico has no normativity for it, making it slightly more complex to achieve the same immersion we have in Peru. We decided to change the product to introduce the full service now adapted to Mexico. We work with Clara and Laboratorios Chopo in Mexico and we will add gyms to the system we are creating in the country.

CR: Working with a B2C model, we added about 160 medical professionals to our Mexican platform. We offer a dual service that allows doctors to add to their medical practice with the support of a team. To bring down barriers in medical care, we try to make the solution as complete as possible.

Q: What is your strategy for entering and expanding in the Mexican market?

JS: We are trying to reach as many Mexican companies as possible. We approach two types of companies: manufacturers and companies where most employees work from home or in a hybrid model. We help them to keep track of their employees’ health. Current processes rely on self-documentation and have many biases caused by human error. We measure health more accurately so production is less affected. Additionally, Smart Doctor is an ally of service companies with big sales teams because no matter where their employees are, we can find them and provide help.

 

Smart Doctor is a technological solution that aims to maximize the well-being of work teams through an ecosystem that allows for the creation of new habits and the management of a person’s physical, emotional and nutritional state.

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