Medindia in the News...

Now all emergency and health information is only a cell-phone away. Medindia.net, promoted by Medial Computer Society of India (MCSI) and FrontPoint Systems, has become the first medical portal from India to become WAP-enabled. While MCSI is a society of professionals from the field of healthcare and information technology, FrontPoint is a US-based IT company with over 500 Web projects to its credit. This initiative is part of a major expansion exercise of the company, for which it is looking for a second round of funding. The first round of around Rs.1 crore was funded by US-based FrontPoint Systems, which has a 20 per cent equity in the company. The remainder of the initial investment of around Rs. 2 crore came from the doctors of MCSI. WAP-enabling the site would make available utilities like finding a doctor, emergency service numbers, hospitals, chemists, pharmaceutical companies, surgical suppliers and many other health utilities in a few moments to people on the move. The Chennai-based company is talking to many overseas financial organizations (especially Sri Lanka and Malaysia) for funding its expansion, according to Dr Sunil Shroff, CEO of Medindia.Net. "After building a platform with comprehensive content and a user base of one lakh, we need a second round of funds to get the revenues flowing", he said. The company is currently exploring additional revenue streams and expects to break even in around one-and-a-half years, with about 5 lakh page views, he added. It is looking at e-commerce in the area of medical equipment, charging registration from chemists, doctors and others for listing on the site and subscription for maintaining health records on the site that can be e-mailed to any doctor across the world. The portal is also talking to insurance and credit card companies for co-branding. In the coming months, the site plans to offer the medical professionals and the general public a host of health utilities like interactive clinical tools, cyber clinics, online medico-legal cell and B2B solutions for healthcare industry. Four-year-old Medindia offers a vast array of features for both medical professionals and healthcare consumers, including a comprehensive online searchable database on Indian healthcare from all over India with two lakh entries. For example, a visitor can search for doctor details anywhere in the country by name or specialization. Other searches include medical/dental/nursing colleges and undergraduate and post-graduate courses. The site also offers the latest medical news, breakthroughs and updates for medical professionals, listing of over 100 common conditions and interactive health calculators like pregnancy calendar, ideal weight/body surface area calculator, health risk for smokers and prostate symptom score, apart from a nutritional help line and diet plans.