iCliniq: Say hello to your doctor at your doorstep

iCliniq brings medical help right into your living room through its portal

Dhruv Suyamprakasam was travelling in Dubai when he hurt his knee. “I didn’t have travel insurance and finally got help through tele-medicine,” he recalls. When he got back, he decided to launch a platform “through which people would have access to medical help”. Thus was born the Coimbatore-based start up iCliniq.

The home page of the iCliniq portal

The home page of the iCliniq portal  

iCliniq began as a domestic consultation platform, says Dhruv, but evolved into a global one with patients across 196 countries and 3500 doctors from around the world. “We didn’t do any market study when we launched in 2010,” says Dhruv ruefully. Initially they had just one consultation per week and Dhruv began to handle the chats personally to get feedback to improve the system. “I must have spoken to at least 7000 patients. When I began to look at the data, I found that many were expats. Once we started interacting with them, the numbers picked up.” Today they have at least 600 queries a day.

Dhruv featured at the NASDAQ tower on Times Square, New York

Dhruv featured at the NASDAQ tower on Times Square, New York  

Dhruv offers a demo of how the portal works. A patient has to register and say if the question is for oneself or for someone else. If the latter, the relationship has to be indicated. Basic information on height, weight, medical history including medications taken has to be entered and medical reports uploaded. Once the question is entered, the system notifies the doctor. If there is no response within a set time, it notifies another. Again, if the answer doesn’t come, a team member calls and ensures the answer is posted. “The interface is monitored 24×7,” assures Dhruv. While the first question is free – the answer arrives in 24 hours – a user has the option of using a fastrack pay option and getting a query in four hours. “We have options for phone and video consultations and one can book lab appointments through the portal also,” explains Dhruv. Queries apart, the portal has a symptom checker and articles by doctors, which Dhruv promises are checked diligently before being posted.

Building ties

  • Earlier this year, the company was selected for the NASDAQ Entreprenuerial Centre’s Milestone Markers programme, which provides individualised mentorship, coaching and access to industry experts to help each company reach its milestone, and was featured on Nasdaq Tower on Times Square. “It was amazing,” smiles Dhruv reminiscently. “The kind of inputs and the interactions with the other selected companies were extremely helpful in showing what we need to do to move forward.”
  • iCliniq has also tied up with JioHealth, the health and fitness app of Reliance Jio. Dhruv is very excited about this partnership and says it has great potential.

Why would someone want to use a portal instead of meeting a doctor? “Instant gratification,” pat comes Dhruv’s answer. His soft-spoken wife and Medical Director Dr Sudha Jagannathan explains, “Today, it’s not easy to get appointments with doctors. In the cities, this saves travel time and waiting at clinics. In rural areas, they don’t have access to specialists. We are able to fill these gaps.” The average user is between 20 and 50 years of age and has a certain ease with technology, “though many older people have enough know-how to use the portal,” smiles Sudha, adding that often consultations are booked by the patient’s children. “So we have the doctor in one location, the patient in another and the son or daughter in a third and they’re all looped in.” The portal also lists when the doctors are available so that patients can schedule their calls. Some patients even send photos of themselves and send, says Sudha, “But for physical exam they can do everything.”

Since Dhruv mentions having gone international with a branch in the US, what are his future plans? “To be listed on NASDAQ five years from now,” he say firmly.

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