Once a patient is discharged from the hospital, many might require home care. They need to keep monitoring their health on a daily basis, or at least on a weekly basis. Since medical science has advanced, one is able to find a few medical devices at home or the nearest pharmacy. But what about those medical devices which are not so common like an oxygen cylinder? The rapid growth of home health care has raised many unsolved issues and definitely, there are solutions available. 

Harddik K Patel, Founder, and CEO, Quali55Care And Consulting Private Limited, has a degree in IT Engineering and MBA in Marketing. He had a well-settled banking job when he decided to shift to a new age startup ecosystem with HealWell24 which is a Technology Enabled In-Home Healthcare Aggregator like DocOnCALL at Home, Paramedics at Home, Lab Test at Home, and Healthcare Internet Ecosystem, AI-Enabled symptoms Analytics & Diagnosis. Then he moved onto being the founder member of Quali55Care And Consulting Private Limited which is India’s leading technology-empowered Healthcare Company aiming to deliver highly durable & affordable medical equipment on rental basis and sale.

Delivering highly durable and affordable medical equipment 

Harddik throws light on how Quali55care is delivering highly durable and affordable medical equipment on rent or sale to people, “We found that when a patient is sent home for continued recovery, the patient and relatives struggle at home without having the right equipment for Easy and Simplified Recovery. Also, in the existing ecosystem: Healthcare is more focused on paramedic staff care. More than 70% of the cases need equipment support. Cost of paramedic staff care limits to homecare.  They have to run around to gather various equipment from various vendors or very often suffer without those being there at the right time. Thus, Quali55Care (brand name) has a vision to become India’s First aggregator for medical equipment vendors, just like how Zomato and Swiggy aggregate restaurants!” he says.

Aim to launch AI Chatbot

“Our company aims to launch the AI/ML fueled recommendation engine with multilingual Chatbot support for customers to make the right decisions to fulfill their immediate medical equipment requirements. With a patient-centric approach, the company also has various flexi and budget-friendly plans in place, to which any individual supplier can subscribe and earn handsome money by renting out inventory to the company. With pan Maharashtra and metro cities expansion in near future, our company targets a larger population to reap benefits. The company also plans to invest in tech-based logistic support. Currently, the company operates from its Mumbai office and also has a web presence, which also has an online store (www.quali55care.com),” says Harddik.

The prime focus is better customer experience and rental offerings at an affordable rate

Harddik points out that in the current healthcare ecosystem; post hospitalization recovery at the comfort of home is treated as the most sensible option instead of continuing the stay to recover within a hospital environment. “Limited or shortages of hospital beds are equally creating more demand for home care. However, to serve the human centric and large scale demand with high quality, quick response, and affordable way is the challenge.  Quali55Care is aiming to serve a large customer (Patient) base with the highest possible quality standard. Creating cloud inventory will allow immediate access in a timely (3-4 Hrs quick delivery) manner. With unique rental offerings, it will allow a larger patient pool to be served at an affordable rate. A focused approach under the mobility segment and smart logistics arrangements will fulfill the quality delivery. Quali55Care.com is looking forward to expanding its wings across the tier 2 and tier 3 cities aggressively. Enabling AI/ML Chatbot for better customer experience and large vendor network for rental offerings at affordable rates is the prime focus for better customer experience,” he says.

An exciting journey from thousands to millions in 2 years

Post-Harddik completed his Engineering in IT and MBA in Marketing, he was excited to venture onto his learning journey and so he started working with Banks and corporate at various stages of his professional journey. Suddenly shifting his career from a well-settled banking job to a new age startup ecosystem was challenging and had its share of responsibilities.

“Heawell24 was just 2 Employees Company with just a couple of thousands as revenue for initial months, but with sharp focus and deep understanding of the healthcare ecosystem and customer-centric approach, it paved the path for the company. Building the right team which shared the same vision and value was equally challenging. Taking Healwell24 from a couple of thousands of Revenue Company to INR 40 million revenue in 2 years was an exciting journey. That gave me deep insight into the homecare ecosystem and I understood that homecare is really challenging with unaffordable segments and patients suffer big time due to the non-availability of the right equipment post-hospital discharge even though the right paramedic support is available. Also, large numbers of startups are currently offering various human-centric home care supports, where the right equipment support is missing and to address that Quali55Care.com has been brought into the home health care ecosystem. It’s been almost a 19 months journey so far and with the aggregator business model and sharp customer-centric focused approach we have been able to achieve INR 100 Lakhs revenue with more than 3000+ satisfied customers. It’s been a very satisfying journey so far and we aim to serve 1 Lacs customer in the next 3 years and we are also looking forward to joining the investor community to take our vision at pan India level,” he says.

COVID-19 has created more trust in customers mindset towards home care

COVID-19 has changed the whole healthcare system approach and touched the consumer mindset very strongly suggests Harddik. “During the initial days of lockdown we have immediately seen change into customer behavior towards rental offerings, however, our quality and quick response has given us the push to serve more satisfied customers. Also due to our strong vendor and team support, we could continue to serve our valuable customer base. COVID-19 has created more trust in the customer mindset towards home care.  Under lockdown and post various unlock scenarios we have started more and more customer referral business which clearly shows that Quali55care.com has created trust into customers' minds to fulfill last-mile customer satisfaction,” he says.

Aged population to reach 15 crores by 2026

“India had more than 7 crores aged population with over 60+ age and expected to reach 15 crores by 2026 and the largely middle and lower-middle-class has very limited or no access to the latest healthcare ecosystem. Quali55care.com is aiming to fulfill that gap and make healthcare available for everyone at affordable and accessible levels in the next 5 years,” says Harddik.

(Edited by Rabia Mistry Mulla)