Apollo Hospitals to offer e-comm services,launches Apollo Telemedicine Ltd.
Apollo: apollohospitals.com
Harshad Oke (ET)
MUMBAI 7 July
THE Chennai-based Apollo Hospitals Ltd is getting ready to launch its electronic commerce business.Apollo Hospitals has floated Apollo Telemedicine Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary, which will spearhead its foray into e-commerce.
The objective: to leverage the Internet and its reach in providing patients with relief.
Confirming this, Pratap C Reddy, chairman, Apollo Hospitals Ltd, told The Economic Times that Apollo will be undertaking its pilot project in either Tamil Nadu or Andhra Pradesh over the next six weeks to eight weeks. Under the scheme, Apollo Telemedicine will launch a website which will serve various communities.
Currently, the company is working on getting its software and other systems in place. Apollo is working with two US-based companies — MCBI and Citadel — which will offer it the packaging and software skills. Apollo Telemedicine is also considering offering both firms an equity stake.
“We are still talking to them,” said Mr Reddy. The company is resorting to selling stake probably because launching and maintaining an e-commerce venture is very expensive business. “Our initial estimate is that we will need to have a corpus of Rs 40 crore to be a serious player,” said Mr Reddy.
To begin with, the website will largely be aimed at serving the smaller hospitals in the smaller towns. “We will be offering the latest in techniques and practices to these hospitals,” said Mr Reddy.
The objective is to offer a total healthcare solution rather than just provide an information resource.
The website also aims to help doctors in not only brushing up on skills, but also in keeping them abreast with the latest research as well as recertification of skills. But, the big draw will be individual patients.
Apollo Telemedicine is in the process of training doctors to enable them to use the Internet as a medium to treat patients. Apollo plans to offers diagnostic help to individual patients.
To ensure secure payments, the company will be using credit cards in the bigger cities, and is planning to appoint collection agents in the smaller towns to recover money. |
