Disruptors are bypassing operators to go straight to the patient
Ali Parsa, the entrepreneurial founder of UK-based digital healthcare company babylon, is happy to work with operators – but he doesn’t think it’s necessary or always the best option, as his recent agreement with Chinese social media and messaging giant WeChat shows. Healthcare Europa caught up with him at HBI 2018 to find out more.
babylon, which uses algorithms to assess illness, has a deal with Tencent-owned WeChat to offer its service on the platform. WeChat has approaching 1 billion users.
Parsa explains the appeal: “We talk a lot to providers, who by definition are brilliant. The top people don’t get to the top unless they are, and they know what they are doing. The trouble is, they pass you on and by the time those people have formed their 10th medical committee meeting to say if they agree or disagree, it knocks the will to live out of your body.
“But – you can ignore the operators. You can get things done directly, and quickly and with less bureaucracy.
“Getting the operators agreement is irrelevant. If you go to the general public, and say ‘name me a single hospital group?’, they wouldn’t be able to. Ask them to name a single primary care group or insurance group – maybe they can name one. But the idea that you need to go to operators to reach their users it’s wrong. Build a brand, become THE brand, go directly to the patients.”
In China, he adds, the WeChat audience could be zero or it could be huge, because China is “highly managed”. As for the current service, he explains: “At the moment we are focussing on the provision of artificial intelligence as a medical service, until the regulation catches up. So you put your symptoms in, and we will give you what could be wrong with you, and what you should do next. Shortly we will move into health assessment where you will answer 100 questions, and it will assess your health in great detail.
“In China, you take (our assessment) to your doctor, in Britain you take it to us, where we are your doctor, and we look after you.”
He claims that in 40% of all cases, nothing more needs to be done as the patient is looking for reassurance or can deal with the problem with over-the-counter medication.
We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to David Farbrother or call 0207 183 3779.
