Mahalife: Encouraging Healthcare through mHealth Date:   Friday , July 26, 2013 Joseph Vijayam was busy running his 17 year old computer software company, Olive Technology Ltd. But last year when he came across the fact that India has a doctor to population ratio of 1:2000 when compared to 1:300 in the U.S. and 1:520 in Singapore, he wanted to bridge this enormous shortfall of doctors in India. The only way possible was through the intervention of technology, more specifically the smartphone which are becoming ubiquitous. He established Mahalife in January this year to lead the way in revolutionizing healthcare with the use of mobile technology and connect the dots through mHealth. Very few mobile apps are built for the Indian market from the ground up. Even fewer are built for healthcare with a focus on specific health conditions such as diabetes, pediatrics, hypertension, obstetrics, oncology and others which require a high degree of interaction between a doctor and the patient. Mahalife’s mobile apps are healthcare solutions focused on enabling doctors and patients to interact directly with each other through their mobile devices. The health condition specific apps are prescribed by doctors to their patients, creatively called “appscription”. This Hyderabad based company offers a patient mobile app which lets the patient feed data that is stored in the Mahalife Cloud and is available on the doctor’s version of the mobile app. The doctor’s app will report health status alerts along with the calculations that will help the doctor analyze and take proactive and reactive measures to manage the condition. Mahalife currently offers two apps, Mahalife Diatracker and Mahalife BabyCare, which can be downloaded for free on the Google Play Store. How they make money The company has multiple sources of revenue. The first is the appscription fee. The doctor receives two-third of the revenue generated for appscribing to their patients and one-third goes to the company. The revenue also comes from targeted advertising to the patients who are appscribing to the specific app. Mahalife understands the potential of data mining, thus it anonymizes the data stored in their cloud and makes it available for medical research. This is another revenue stream for the company. The company also provides a platform for m-Commerce wherein if the doctor wants to prescribe medication or healthcare device, the patient can buy the same over their mobile from Mahalife's online store. Challenges faced mHealth is still new to India which is why Mahalife encountered difficulties in explaining to the doctors how these apps could serve their needs for better diagnostics, greater patient loyalty, increased personal care and monitoring, and ultimately increased revenues for the doctors. Initially some doctors were hesitant, but after they grasped the concept there is great enthusiasm to appscribe the apps to their patients. Today, doctors are enthusiastic that they will have an additional revenue stream by prescribing an app which enables them to monitor the health condition of their patients, have much better data for diagnostics, while creating patient loyalty. These apps also increase the doctor’s capacity to care for more patients, even remotely located patients. What Next Vijayam plans to launch 10 more apps in next eighteen months and intends to take his company global, which is why this innovation driven company is seeking external funding from investors who not only provide him with access to capital and connections in the healthcare field but also help him launch his company worldwide.