Pooja Gupta is the CTO at PurpleDocs. PurpleDocs has created a digital health records app for Doctors and Patients and facilitates access to vital health data for making informed clinical decisions.

Purple Docs

On being asked about what led to the inception of PurpleDocs, Pooja mentions, “One of the family members was diagnosed with cancer. And she was treated on for a very long time. For every visit, we need to organize the whole medical records that consisting of scan reports, CDs, and documents which takes a day or two. Medical records are very essential for any treatment process. We need to carry the whole set of past medical history, records, and documents every time we go for a consultation. We were fed up with arranging the scattered distributed system. And soon we realized that we are doing so much for other countries, what are we doing for our own country, and why are we not trying to change the prevalent system of treatment? After thorough research for 2 years in Pune as well as in Vadodara, we came to know the real reason behind the lower penetration of HMS in hospitals. Penetration was low because solutions were not designed as per the need of Indian doctors. In the US, on average doctors spend 30 minutes for a single patient, and in India, it's just 2-3 minutes.”

“We gave them a simple solution for patient record digitization. At that time no one had ever heard of EMR. There were lots of question marks but we educated the doctors. And within 12 months, we were serving more than 20 hospitals. Marketing we did at that time was word of mouth. The hospitals start approaching us for every new IT requirement. We are the only player who has organized IP digitization till today. We created a search engine for the doctors which is customizable. Doctors just have to put the patient's name and the whole patient’s history in front of them. From there organic growth started, and we ventured into OPD, PHR," says Pooja.

USP of PurpleDocs

Pooja informs, “Our USP has always been the UX and ability to customize. All our services are absolutely customizable as per the doctors. Doctors need an easy interface. We always try to reduce workload through our solutions. Physician burnout is the main problem of doctors. There is zero learning curve. We want them to talk to the patient more and deliver the compliant prescription. We have got the highest stickability because of the flexible model.”

Client base

Pooja expresses, “We have a whopping 95 lacs + health records on our platform. We have covered more than 150 hospitals and our solutions are being used by more than 500 doctors till today.” 

Funds and their utilization

Pooja says, “In 2015, we had only one product and were operating from Vadodara. We have used our funds to expand our footprints, we have expanded to 16 more cities. We have launched 3 more products since then. We are still growing in terms of product offerings”

Pooja adds, “COVID has hit the medical fraternity the hardest. There were only COVID patients all around, everything else took a step back. Our services did get affected by COVID. Pre COVID, we were growing on YoY 100% growth. We have used COVID times in product development, and our footprints have increased. And this year again we are targeting 100% growth." 

Expansion plans and goals

Pooja states, “We are targeting both horizontal and longitudinal growth. EMR products are completely stabilized. We are expanding the market. Along with that, we are coming up with a B2C product that will bridge the gap between doctor and patients."

Valuable advice for the budding entrepreneur

Pooja concludes, “Healthcare is a difficult market which is driven by demand. You have to relate to the need, and will have to study the market. Everybody who wants to be an entrepreneur should work for a startup because the journey needs a lot of perseverance, hard work, and commitment. Do lots of research and then enter the field as adaptability is often difficult."

(Edited by Renu Gupta)