Over the last twenty years, technology has changed immensely and is positively impacting the healthcare industry in terms of driving operational efficiencies and clinical outcomes. The Middle East has historically been slow to adopt such technologies, but in primary healthcare at least, it looks like this is changing. Telehealth, the delivery of healthcare remotely through technology, is at an inflexion point when it comes to primary healthcare. Payers are haemorrhaging cash, consumers are demanding more, governments are predicting doctor shortages and telehealth provides the perfect solution for all.
Health at Hand is one such company which has realized the importance of advanced technologies for the betterment of the healthcare industry. The Dubai-based company were the first DHA licensed telehealth company, and importantly are the only independent one – with a huge focus on ‘Ethical Health’ where, uniquely for the region, their doctors are not incentivised to over-medicate, they recommend generic rather than branded drugs where it is safe to do so, and have a quite brilliant app which combines live doctor video consultations, integrated doctor notes and even drug delivery. In order to retain their sustainable competitive advantage, the team of Health at Hand attend and speak at regional conferences, frequently test competitors’ products, conduct bi-annual trips to Silicon Valley where telehealth has transformed primary healthcare, and are valued ‘thought-leaders’ for both regional health regulators and governments. The efforts of Health at Hand have been awarded numerous times; their CEO Charlie Barlow is a Google scholar and mentor, recently winning a place on the highly competitive Blackbox accelerator in Silicon Valley, the company won the Innovation of the Year award at the 2018 Middle East Insurance Industry Awards, and most recently were awarded a place on the United Nations sponsored C3 Impact Accelerator, endorsing the claim that they offer the most ethical telehealth solution in the Middle East and Africa.
Cost-efficient, Trustworthy, and High-Quality Healthcare Services For All
Health at Hand have cleverly combined a market-leading technology enabled solution for the payers (with a technology stack comparable to some of the unicorn telehealth companies in the US), with an app based product that finally seeks to democratize healthcare for the consumer. With data privacy standards and medical record security that goes over and above what is required in the MENA region, Health at Hand have had their business validated by signing a game-changing regional contract with Allianz, bringing their technology solution to 100,000s of patients in Dubai alone, paid for by their insurer. This huge endorsement is even more impressive when it is noted that Allianz are shareholders in US telehealth company American Well, who have previously secured >$500million in funding.
Health at Hand App for Quality and Convenient Primary Healthcare
Health at Hand’s app based patient to doctor video consultation platform connects patients with internationally accredited doctors on-demand with a maximum wait time of 2 minutes. The motto behind the app is to enable patients to access quality advice from the comfort of their home or on the go, for an affordable flat rate fee – or even better, paid for by their insurer through commercial partnerships. Further, Health at Hand dwells extensively on consumer behaviour change since telehealth is a relatively new concept in the MENA region.
Aside from their recent Allianz contract, Health at Hand are looking to offering this service across an additional 4 regional countries during 2019 alone.
Charlie Barlow, the Founder and CEO of Health at Hand, strongly believes in the notion of ‘ethical healthcare for all’. He passionately advocates that access to quality, primary healthcare should be a fundamental human right and not a privilege for the few. It is this social value proposition that drives all decisions within the company, believing that a deep commitment to ethical health will ultimately drive out corruption and abuse, and ensure the same access to quality primary healthcare for everyone.
It is abundantly clear that Charlie loves his work, and his huge and infectious passion for disrupting the sector is shared by his team. Health at Hand work hard to maintain a collaborative and entrepreneurial culture, with all employees having equity or equity options in the business, and all new employees encouraged to read Eric Topol’s ‘The Patient Will See You Now’ on arrival, to really reinforce their impactful focus.
Culture and ethics starts at home. Adopting a mindful approach towards their own employees, with a real and active focus on gender parity (over 50% of their team are female), team members complete their own “User Guides”, specially crafted according to individuals and their expectations from the organization and their colleagues. It provides guidance on how a particular employee likes to be treated, their work-life-balance, and how to build a culture of respect, collaboration and innovation.
By combining cost saving for the payer with a patient centric consumer mobile app, Health at Hand are ontrack to deliver on their ambitious mission of ensuring quality, affordable and convenient primary healthcare is made available to all citizens of the MENA region. This would be some achievement.
