How tech will shape the future of healthcare

Andrew Lin and Hon Weng Cheng gave up a successful career path in medicine for their new medical startup CliniCloud, an app that allows patients to take charge of their own healthcare.

The future of healthcare is in tech, and Andrew and Hon are tapping into this market early. Source: Supplied

For Andrew Lin and Hon Weng Chong, telling their parents they were ditching medicine soon after graduating wasn't easy.

 

But they had a worthwhile reason, even if their parents may have thought otherwise: a business idea, relating to the emerging digital medicine industry.

 

"We decided to make a kit Very similar to a first aid kit, but with digital health devices, so that we could bring the clinic into the home," Hon explains. They called the business CliniCloud.

 

"We've got a world-first digital stethoscope that connects to a phone, and a Bluetooth non-contact thermometer" Andrew adds - not bad, for a prototype created in their lounge room, which won them Microsoft grant in 2012.

SBS reporter Sarah Abo gives the CliniCloud kit a go. Source: Supplied

The thermometer works by waving it across your forehead, and the reading can either be  saved on the app, or text or emailed. It primarily works in partnership with a tele-medical physician, like "Doctor in Demand", but you can also liaise with your family doctor.

 

To Andrew and Hon, this is the future of health care. There's also the potential of treating millions of people dying from preventable diseases in the developing world. 

 

"What we really wanted to do at CliniCloud was drive that health care consumerism, and make people themselves better advocates of their own care....And through technology, empower them to do so. And be more equipped to do so, " Andrew says.

CliniCloud gives patients the opportunity to take charge of their own healthcare. Source: Supplied

But getting to this point has taken a lot of hard work. The business started off making a loss, with product development being one of the most expensive aspects.

 

"It's not easy, particularly for a start-up that's intermingling with hardware, with software, with medical devices regulation, with health data and with a dream to achieve artificial intelligence" Andrew says. "And we needed a lot of capital and we needed people to believe that we, as young doctors, with not too much prior experience, can pull it off."

 

Fortunately, people did believe in them. China-based Ping An Ventures, and tech giant TenCent, came on board, providing 5 million U.S dollars in seed funding. 

 

"They're gambling on the future. That future health care is one that is patient-driven, is one that is very different to what it is today," Andrew explains.

CEO Andrew Lin sees medical care as something that will be easily accessible for everyone across the world - thanks to tech. Source: Supplied

As for monetizing the business, CliniCloud makes what Andrew describes as a "marginal" profit on every product they sell. "But it's a question of whether you invest that back into the company or not."

 

Despite being Australian designed and created, CliniCloud won't actually be available here until sometime next year. 

Hon and Andrew say the Australian market is a much more challenging one to break - mainly because our healthcare system is pretty good. So their biggest potential lies in the US.

 

"I think the future really is about simplifying. Simplifying the whole process," Hon says. "Expanding out beyond the young parent market and into the 80% of healthcare users, which are the elderly."

 

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