See patients by video, in their language

A telemedicine app lets doctors see patients without either of them travelling. The consultation happens by video, audio or chat, and everything around it happens in the same app: booking, payment, consent, the patient’s history, the prescription and the follow-up.

That last part is what separates telemedicine from a video call. A doctor can already see a patient on WhatsApp video. What they can’t do there is confirm who the patient is, record consent, see the patient’s history beside the call, issue a proper prescription and book the review. A telemedicine app puts all of that around the call, so an online consultation is as complete as a visit to the clinic.

We build telemedicine for two kinds of clients. Clinics and hospital groups want video consultations for their own patients, alongside in-clinic visits: follow-ups, test results, repeat prescriptions and patients who can’t travel. HealthTech companies want a telemedicine service of their own, with their own doctors, brand, apps and partners.

The first usually fits into the clinic’s existing booking and records, with one calendar for in-clinic and video slots. The second needs everything: patient and doctor apps, doctor verification, payouts, partner labs and pharmacies, and support. We help you decide which you are building before anything is designed, because the two cost very different amounts.

Follow-ups are where telemedicine earns its place first. A patient who travelled for the first visit often needs only a short conversation for the second: how the medicine is working, what the report says, whether the dose should change. By video, that takes minutes instead of a day.

Next come test results and repeat prescriptions for long-term conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and thyroid disorders, where regular reviews matter more than a physical examination. Patients who would otherwise skip a review because of the journey keep up with their treatment.

Then there are the patients who can’t easily come at all: older parents, people in towns far from a specialist, new mothers, and families whose child needs a quick check in the evening. For them, an online consultation is often the difference between seeing a doctor today and waiting until it gets worse.

Some consultations still need the clinic. A good telemedicine app knows that too: the doctor can convert a video call into an in-clinic appointment in one step, with the history already on file.

India’s Telemedicine Practice Guidelines, issued in March 2020, allow registered medical practitioners to consult by video, audio and text, and to issue e-prescriptions. They also set rules, and we build them into the screens rather than leaving them to memory.

Every doctor’s medical registration is checked before they can consult. The patient’s identity and consent are confirmed and recorded before the call. Prescriptions carry the doctor’s name, qualifications and registration number. The guidelines’ lists of medicines that can and can’t be prescribed online are enforced by the prescription screen, depending on the type of consultation, and records of each consultation are kept.

Outside India the rules differ: in the United States, for example, a doctor generally needs to be licensed where the patient is, and HIPAA governs health information. We design for the rules where you practise, agreed with your adviser. Meeting them stays with your practice; our job is to build the controls they ask for.

Patients describe symptoms most clearly in the language they think in, and follow advice better when they understand it. For many families in India that means Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi or Tamil, not English.

We build the app, the booking flow and the messages in the languages your patients use, and let patients choose a doctor who speaks theirs. Prescriptions and advice can reach the patient in their language. Live captions can help when the line is unclear, and an AI scribe can draft the doctor’s notes in English from a consultation held in Gujarati, for the doctor to check.

Each language is written and tested with real patients. A screen that is translated correctly but reads stiffly loses an older patient’s trust in the first minute.

Many patients join from a phone on a mobile network that comes and goes. A telemedicine app has to plan for that, not hope it won’t happen.

We build calls that lower video quality before they freeze, fall back to clear audio when video can’t keep up, and reconnect on their own when the line drops. Patients join from a link in the browser without installing anything, and can switch to audio or chat at any time. The doctor sees the patient’s connection, so a frozen picture isn’t mistaken for a silent patient.

The consultation ends with an e-prescription, and in a good service that is where the next steps begin. Lab tests on the prescription can be booked with a partner lab, with a technician visiting the patient’s home and the report arriving in the app for the doctor. Medicines can be ordered from a partner pharmacy for delivery.

Follow-ups are booked from the prescription, with reminders on WhatsApp. For long-term conditions such as diabetes or thyroid disorders, regular reviews and tests can be scheduled as a care programme, so patients don’t drop out of treatment.

Every consultation, report and prescription stays together in the patient’s record, so the next doctor sees the whole picture. Patients can link their ABHA health ID and keep their records under India’s digital health mission, sharing them with other providers when they choose.

AI notes are optional. With the patient’s consent, the AI listens to the consultation and drafts the notes and prescription. The doctor checks, edits and approves everything, and nothing reaches the patient without the doctor’s approval.

Health data needs more care than any other data an app holds. Calls and records are encrypted in transit and at rest, each role sees only what it needs, and every access to a record is logged.

Calls are not recorded unless your policy needs it and the patient agrees; the notes and the prescription are the record of the consultation. Consent for the consultation, for AI notes and for ABHA linking is recorded separately, and patients can see what they agreed to. For Indian patients, data is kept in India and handled in line with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act.

We need time with a few of your doctors and the people who book and support patients. They know which consultations work online, what patients ask before and after the call, and where today’s process breaks.

We also need your doctors’ details for verification, the specialities and fees, the partners you work with or want to, and the languages your patients speak. Then we design the screens and test them with real patients in each language, build, and pilot with a small group of doctors before opening to every patient.

Before launch we agree what to measure: calls that connect first time, calls that drop to audio, the wait in the virtual waiting room, prescriptions issued, and follow-ups that happen. The app records these as it runs.

Every month we review them with you, fix what patients and doctors find, and add what comes next: another speciality, another language, a care programme or a new partner.