eClinicalWorks, a US based global ambulatory healthcare IT solutions provider is very bullish on India’s expanding healthcare market.With many large hospitals and mid-size clinics already investing in technology to streamline their operations and improve healthcare services for patients, eClinicalWorks sees India as a strategic market for its cloud based healthcare IT solutions.
Tapping India’s healthcare market
“We currently have 75 hospitals that are our customers and we are expecting to serve 200 more hospitals before the end of this year. And these hospitals range from small 25 to 50 bed hospitals to large as 1000 bed hospitals that we are currently implementing,” Dr. Rajesh Dharampuriya, eClinicWorks’ CMO and owner told ETCIO.
“200 more hospitals by the end of this year that is our goal, so it will be close to 300, I would think and I would not be surprise if we beat this target considering how aggressively we are selling in the market,” Dharampuriya added.
Unlike in the US, company’s primary focus here is more on the Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) for hospitals and clinics in India and wants to leverage cloud to provide these solutions. Also, it sees a huge potential for telemedicine to grow in India’s rural areas, where mobiles phones can help connect doctors and patients.
Since the start of 2016, eClinicalWorks is focusing on the Indian healthcare market as it sees the India as a strategic market for business expansion along with that it wants to expand its foot print and customer base in the Middle East and South East Asia.
“The focus right now is on the India market as well as the Middle East and South East Asia markets but again I have to say the majority of the focus at least in the Q1 has been on the India market,” Dharampuriya said.
With a majority of its current 75 client base in India consisting of large size hospitals and clinics from Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and other urban cities, eClinicalWorks aim to tap the more business opportunities in the urban areas for this year at least and may look at tier 2 and 3 cities next year.
Investment in India
Further, the privately held company had announced a $30 million investment for business expansion plans last December and majority of this funding is expected to be used for strengthening business operations in India broadly in four areas – research and development (R&D), on-site implementation support for hospitals, products and services related support, and sales and marketing.
“A lot of that (money) will go into the R&D, where we realized that Indian healthcare market is different from the US. And so that’s one area where we got to understand what the market needs and continue to enhance our products to make it more convenient and easy,” Dharampuriya explained.
The Westborough located company drives almost 98 percent of its revenue through direct sales model in the US, wants to continue and follow the same model in India as well rather than channel or reseller model.
IT adoption in Indian healthcare sector & its challenges
According to Dharampuriya, the overall technology adoption is increasing in India across all segments and healthcare is not an exception. “Majority of growth potential that we are seeing is in the in-patient market based on how care is delivered in India,” he pointed out.
Despite India’s infrastructure issues and challenges, Dharampuriya is quiet hopeful and banks on the surge seen in adoption of mobile phones, apps, internet and cloud among population and businesses.
Beside the software solutions for hospitals and clinics like the Hospital Management Solution and Electronic Healthcare Records (EHR), company also considers Indian consumers as a huge potential base for its eClinicalWorks mobile app, which enables engagement and communication between patients and doctor for booking appointments and other services.
“We have this eClinicalWorks mobile app, which is used currently by millions of people in the US and some other countries. And we are getting this app more customized for the Indian market and will be launching it pretty soon in India,” Aakash Shah, eClincialWorks India’s Director Sales said.
On-premise to Cloud movements
In terms of solutions adoption, most customers in the healthcare space prefer on-premise IT solutions till the time, they learn about safety and security aspect of data in the cloud as well as the benefits it offers. However, after gaining experience, knowledge and familiarity in some years, these customers tend to go in the direction of cloud.
“The preference for on-premise IT solutions is mainly to have full control and data access within the hospital premise however in few years time, customer figures how much money it can save along the kind of easy accessibility it can get on mobile devices with cloud based solution,” Shan explained.
eClinicalWorks unlike other IT or software companies, according to Shah is a pure healthcare software product company and it has been offering a wide range of software products for past 16 years that remains unmatched by the competitors in India.
Most solutions are certified and compliant to healthcare regulatory bodies including National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare (NABH) in India and Joint Commission International (JCI) globally.
Today, company has over 4500 staff with three offices in India. Besides, it has six offices in the US and one in the UK, while it has an overall presence across 30 different countries. Last year eClinicalWorks’ revenue cross $400 million and it expects to grow revenue to $500 million by 2016 end.
