From mobile medical apps and software that supports the clinical decisions doctors make every day to artificial intelligence and machine learning, digital technology has been driving a revolution in health care. The broad scope of digital health includes categories such as mobile health (mHealth), health information technology (IT), wearable devices, telehealth and telemedicine, and personalized medicine. 

Digital health tools have the vast potential to improve our ability to accurately diagnose and treat disease and to enhance the delivery of health care for the individual.

Dr. Sarthak Patnaik, MD, and Founder, Lyflink and Director, Dava Dena, is a senior Consultant and Prof. of Arthroscopy & Sports Medicine, a Medical device Inventor, an Entrepreneur, and a Mentor. He has won the Mahatma Gandhi Leadership Award for Health Care Technology.

Lyflink Health allows you to manage and well being of your Loved ones through a single intelligent healthcare account for the entire family that securely stored all their health records.

Dava Dena is an app to get your Medicine Business online & set your digital clinic with Whatsapp integrated online shop in 5 Minutes.

Lyflink has online and offline consultations

Dr. Sarthak explains how Lyflink is helping doctors to manage the patient records, CRM solution, and consultations online and offline, “Lyflink works in both the medium. To go with the online mode we have our own Patient Management application software wherein a doctor can help in maintaining and even grow his own practice. With this, patients and doctors can completely schedule their appointment and whatever consultations are to be done, he gets an SMS, or it's the online consultation through audio call or even a video consultation. The doctor can also completely keep his patient’s health records for any further analytic studies or any research material on this platform. Similarly, for the patients, we have around 300 specialist doctors, like orthopedics, neurologist, neck specialist, oncologist you name it, and we have it. The patient can get access to all the specialist doctors, as per the rates. Since in higher cities or bigger centers, the doctors do charge a high fee, but if a patient wants to reach a specialty, we even can get it in the minimum consultation rate. And sometimes what we do, if a patient is really unable to afford, we give free consultations. I, being a founder, do not take a salary from my own organization. So my consultation is basically given free for the patient. The offline mode that we have is our presence is quite unique. It is something known as digital health clinics or digital health booths, it is something like the old STD booths which used to be there. Similarly, we have built up these digital health booths which are present in the interior of Orissa wherein a patient walks in. Then we have a pharmacy guy who's a diploma pharmacy minimum requirement, so it's a job opportunity for him. So, with technology, we intend to know which doctor he sees to address his joint pain, so it comes to an orthopedic surgeon and if the surgeon is not available he is sent to a medical doctor. So, we have a backup of all doctors with us. In this rural setup, what we have tied up with bus people over there and whoever our representatives are there, they collect the blood samples and send it through the bus and we have our partners here who do the assessment and then again send the reports. This is how we try to reach the maximum number of people. At present, we have around 70,000 patients in our system, and nearly 300 doctors, daily consultations take place on our platform thanks to the government of India as they have regularized the teleconsultation so that the fear which seemed to be there amongst doctors is not there anymore,” he says.

Working under the Pioneer Surgeon Dr. David Rajan

Dr. Sarthak describes his experience of working under the Pioneer Surgeon Dr. David Rajan, “David sir is just like a fatherly figure. He is a great surgeon, a great human being, and a great teacher. My first training was in Cape Town and when I came back, during the initial phase of surgeries, my hands were still shivering while going through that artwork, basically arthroscopy is skilled work, so sir held my hand and he took my hand and gave me a tour of the human knee joint. I also remember he once told me, never stand too close to an elephant, you can't be sure if you see a tail, or its butt. So overall, it has been a learning for me be it a medical profession or during the docpreneur. I always tend to take two steps back and try to visualize what exactly I'm going to do, what is my target population, what I want exactly, and it helps. So there are no words for David sir, the self-made man and being a South Indian, they are in their own simplicity and humbleness,” he says.

Dava Dena - a utility solution for pharmacies to go online

Dr. Sarthak explains, “Since we've been already doing teleconsultations through Lyflink and serving the population of doctors. Then we thought of increasing our traffic to our platform Lyflink. Hence we reached out to the pharmacy through Dava Dena. Through this app, the pharmacy can convert the patient to a customer online. When any patient walks into this pharmacy, even if the doctor is not available, they can give the patient over-the-counter medication. But if the case requires specialist care then they are directed towards the doctors. The pharmacist can be closer to the unit doctors and they can earn from the consultation, they can earn through the blood test as they can tie up with the nearby laboratories. It can help them grow and get more visibility, there will be more branding of them, and the reachability will be increased and now they will get a platform online with a complete solution to come up in life or in the competition,” he says.

Awarded the Mahatma Gandhi Leadership Award for Health Care Technology

Dr. Sarthak explains his feelings, “In 2017, I was in the USA and was doing quite good as I was also a doctor for the Indian ice hockey team. I still remember the day when I performed surgery and that case was printed on the cover page of an elite international journal of arthroscopy. I told my father about it and he replied, “So how do I get the benefit? Nobody called me, nobody told me anything.” So I thought to myself, it's true, I earned a name and was doing quite good but I changed my mind and came back in the year 2015. And then around 2016, I saw the real problem in India that was of reachability. If a patient comes from a rural village to a city, even if it is a tier 2 city like Bhubaneswar, he has to pay a lot for traveling, doctor fees, medicines, logistics, etc. So I met my co-founder Mr. Tushar Patnaik who is a tech guy, and an IIT Roorkee guy named Harish. We all thought of this solution to connect things through technology. Over the years, it was my thinking I had this but I really congratulate Harish and Mr. Tushar, who had come up with all this, be it the platform, activities outcomes, and being a startup yet being recognized by the governor of Orissa and then being recognized on a national platform. So quite positive for us,” he says.

Providing healthcare to the rural population of India

Dr. Sarthak throws light on the subject, “What we have made is this digital health clinic, which is present in around four to five rural cities and also we have encouraged the entire local diploma holder, the local pharmacist to use the Lyflink app. So one we are getting constitution to this app and the second, with this digital health clinic any patient who walks into there, he gets a free BP check, a free weight check and then he can do a consultation to this online,” he says.

(Edited by Rabia Mistry Mulla)