Delhi-based MediSOS helps you manage medical schedules and be equipped with emergency preparedness

Sunday February 21, 2016 , 5 min Read

Hollywood movies can influence some to experiment with something interesting in real life. When 22-year-old Vishal Agarwalla watched a Hollywood movie, a scene where people dialled 911 during an emergency inspired him to start ideating for MediSOS.

Founded in January 2015, MediSOS is an online platform that provides preventive and emergency aids to its users through different features that enable them to be prepared for any sort of emergency through one-touch SOS and medical ID facilities. The tools allow users to record and maintain their medical schedules and health vitals so as to have control of their health. The startup also enables users to connect with their near and dear ones and interact with them, thereby creating an ecosystem where people can help one another lead a healthy life.

Vishal says,

We plan to develop a private network all across the country, which gives people the liberty to make contact during any kind of emergency they are in, and get immediate response and assistance.”

Vishal is a mechanical engineer by qualification and has started MediSOS soon after getting out of college. Initially, he had invested $100,000 which he obtained from family and friends. The biggest challenge was to get proper market analysis and decide on a definitive set of features to start with.

Currently, MediSOS is based out of Delhi with an eight-member team. The business development team works from multiple locations like Bhubaneswar, Kolkata and Bengaluru.

MediSOS offers services like first aid, SOS, health record management, disease and drug management, e-medical ID and health connect (social networking in health domain). It also provides comprehensive support systems to corporates where they can avail doctor services, hospitals, pathology labs and pharmacies on their panel for their employees.

Through its SOS facility, users can notify their emergency contact with their location. It also provides a list of nearby hospitals upon activation of SOS, helpline numbers which are displayed on SOS screen for the users, detailed health-tracking system which allows users to save data of all their health vitals in a table to track, a health planner to help users keep a track of their medicines, tests and other activities, and notification upon completion of an activity.

Health record management

MediSOS provides various data analytics facility to corporates, by which they can generate various results based on the health records stored with them. MediSOS generates reports to give health advice to improve health standards of the employees and also suggests ways to do so. MediSOS also provides data on request basis as a comparison model for health standards in different corporates. The whole structure comes up with various modification tools such as adding new records, or editing existing records for both new and existing employees.

MediSOS has used Zend Framework, PHP, MY SQL, Android Native and IOS Platform to develop products. The startup also plans to move to Oracle and Java platform within a year.

Vishal says,

Our major focus is corporate sector for the revenue and we are also focussing on big data analytics for insurance and pharmaceutical companies. For business development, we are usuing digital marketing and launching the campaign in different corporate sectors in India as well USA so as to make people aware of the product and their features.”

He adds, “We have a corporate model for big and small-scale industries where we provide corporates various digital solutions like maintaining health records. Along with that we provide them facilities like doctors' services, hospitals and pathology labs on their panel. MediSOS is providing the facility of insurance on the basis of risk calculated based on the data analytics provided by the employees.”

Going forward

In a span of two months, MediSOS has acquired more than 200 users on the app and around 300 users on the portal. The startup expects to touch a revenue number of $6-7 million within two to three years and by 2015-16, it is expecting a $500,000.

Currently, MediSOS is on Android platform only, and soon it will be available in iOS also.

YourStory’s take

According to a report by Startup Healthcare, more than 7,500 startups around the world are developing new solutions in digital health. A large range of treatment costs, awareness about healthcare disorders, rising interest in medical tourism, need for quicker diagnosis, increasing disposable income and rising penetration of health insurance are some of the key factors that are driving this sector currently.

The per-capita expenditure on healthcare is estimated to increase to $89 in 2015 from $61 in 2012. The market size of this healthtech industry is projected to reach $280 billion by 2020, revealed the India Brand Equity report. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion stated that the data for 2000-2015 shows that FDI investment in hospitals and diagnostic centres totalled $3.21 billion.

Practo, Potrea Media, MedGenome, LaRenon, Lybrate, Medwell Ventures are considered some of the biggest players in healthtech sector. Right now it is a wait-and-watch moment for the year-old MediSOS to make a mark on this sector.