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October - 2014 - issue > Startup of the Year - Elder Care

UberHealth: Comprehensive Healthcare Ecosystem to Safeguard Your Elders

Rashmisree Deb
Friday, December 5, 2014
Rashmisree Deb
Health of aging parents has always been a concern for NRI children. According to a survey, 75 percent NRIs cited family health concerns as a reason to come to India. Seeding of the idea to establish UberHealth was born out of the same issue faced by the three co-founders Ishan Jha, Ajay Pal Singh, and Kamal Aggarwal. These three young entrepreneurs were residing far from their aging parents and found strenuous to visit every time when they faced health related problems. Informal discussions between Ishan & Ajay led to a research in this field and to their astonishment they did not find any such service in India. Hence, they started speaking with their contacts who reside outside India and Kamal joined them in the process. These interactions bolstered the idea and they started to interact with the hospitals, laboratories and doctors. Thus, UberHealth was incepted in the year 2013 with two motives - to decrease the anxiety of the child living away and to increase the convenience of service for elderly. By fulfilling this vision, UberHealth today has become one of the fastest growing unique healthcare service platform in India providing high value service at optimum cost for elderly people.

The 14-month old company provides medical needs to elderly parents at ease. UberHealth has introduced 'Care Buddy' who is dynamic & qualified, resourceful & observant, calm & good listener, friendly & empathetic, and brings smile on the elders face with his/her humor. Care Buddy gives a visit to the elder, organizes the medical data and uploads on the server. The Buddy also has direct point of contact with children living abroad through WhatsApp, Viber, and e-Mail. Understanding the needs of both the child and the parent, Care Buddy shares options and details of doctors, books appointment with doctors & labs, gives reminders for medicine refill and manages all logistics, including arranging transport. The charges undergone through the process is taken care by Care Buddy and the bill is presented to the child for payment. The Buddy takes care of the human touch in one end and the technology on the other thus bridges the gap between needs of the child and the elder.

As the concept was new to India, it took time for UberHealth to explain people the whole idea. The company also faced the initial crunches of hiring the right talent. As fortune favors the bold, they overcome these glitches by getting in touch with their advisors, who have diverse experience in the medical fields, early on making transition easier for them. "Of the lot, accepting the change in social life was the toughest to break in the initial days because I had to work all alone most of the times. I got extensive support from some of the family members and friends, thereby keeping me moving ahead. My co-founders, who are also my seniors from college made it easy by keeping things pretty chilled out," says Ishan Jha, CEO, UberHealth.

Living up to the Core Values

Operations at UberHealth run on the value 'To make elderly feel special, while preserving their dignity'. The Care Buddy also holds the same values as they interact directly with the users. To make the elders feel special, UberHealth make sure that the Care Buddy feels special. Thus, the hiring process is a very important part of the execution. They extensively test the qualities and values the applicant holds. Clear communication is also a crucial aspect that is followed within the organization. Employees are given with a platform to freely throw out their ideas, give feedback and even complain. This is an initiative by the organization for the employees so as to make them feel empowered and ownership towards the company. With a strong foothold in healthcare space, the company wants to become a first point of contact for the elderly needs. "Our extensive research on the behavior of elders gave us some very good insights. Simple as it may sound, the elder just want someone to talk to. So, we want to give all our services a human touch. There is a need to provide extensive care, where we will be making their social life engaging. Some aspects like removing social isolation through conducting location specific activities, religious & cultural tours, and social events will be on our agenda in the future," concludes Ishan.


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