Super App: Tata group bullish on predictive healthcare, teleconsultation – ET HealthWorld

With the ambition of launching a Super App, the Tata group is betting big on the healthcare segment through Tata Health, which provides teleconsultation services and, in the future, aims to predict non-communicable diseases before onset for its users. Tata has acquired majority stake in online pharmacy 1mg, which has been integrated as a pharmacy partner on the Tata Health application.

The business conglomerate now has its sights on the ₹1,200-crore teleconsultation market and looks to achieve a 10% market share by the end of this fiscal year, according to Manzoor Ameen, the chief executive of Tata Health.While the ultimate aim is to provide predictive and preventive healthcare, the company has started with teleconsultation to get users familiar with its platform and also build a database for its predictive algorithms.

“A lot of healthcare that we see is reactive. That is, when a person falls ill is when you end up going to the doctor. The fundamental belief is that if we can understand that person better, then we have a very good ability to catch illness early and delay, if not prevent, chronic disease,” Ameen told ET.

The feature to provide predictive healthcare could take 3-15 years to get operational. It can help predict non-communicable diseases like diabetes and cancer.

“The crux of what we are getting into is become a family doctor in an online mode for the new India. Then we may be able to pull this off, providing predictive, preventive and personalised healthcare,” the chief executive said.

Tata Industries, the parent of Tata Health, will be investing Rs 150 crore in the three-year-old platform this fiscal year as it ramps up advertising campaigns to drive up subscription numbers. Currently, Tata Health has about 800,000 subscribers on its platform, Ameen said. It got a significant leg-up during the Covid-19 pandemic with more people trying remote consultation, he said.

The company employs about 250 people. It has about 100 general physicians on its rolls and about 350 specialists available for consultations.

The number of new subscribers on the platform has been growing at a rate of 200% every year. However, its share remains insignificant in a marketplace dominated by the likes of Practo, DocsApp and Mfine.

Incidentally, 1mg also provides teleconsultation services on its own platform.

The online health consultation market in India was worth about Rs 1,200 crore in FY21 and could grow to Rs 6,000 crore by FY24, according to a recent report by Praxis. The overall outpatient consultation market in India was about Rs 76,700 crore in FY21.