Entrepreneur of the Month: Mr.Virendra Patrikar is an inspiration for those who are trying to build their enterprise. Born and raised in the city of Nagpur in Maharashtra, Patrikar is a simple man who dreamt big and finally brought a drastic change in the medical world through information technology (IT).
A lot was churned out during our conversation with him about his journey and the reason why his story is spurring, because of his unique career choices and vision. Before his elaborated Q &A round, let’s introduce you to this persona with his achievements.
Mr. Virendra Patrikar grew up in a middle-class Marathi family and like any other parents, his parents also expected him to go for a regular technical education for a decent job. He pursued B.Sc.(Electronics) and later did post-graduation in Electronics and Instrumentation with specialization in Medical Instrumentation. In the year 1990, he also got an opportunity to join the Indian Air Force as a pilot, but destiny had stirred something else for him. But after the IAF Commission got cancelled, he took a job in Pune. He chose to work as an R&D engineer in the Medical Instrumentation field and contributed in the designing of many Manual & Automatic Printer sharing switches that were in high demand from all over the country during that time.
After spending 2 years in Pune, he came back to his hometown Nagpur and worked with companies like ZENITH Computers for IT Networking and Hardware Engineer and managed major corporate, PSUs, Government Institutions, Professional setups between for a few years. After getting enough experience Patrikar began to establish his own company WAS_ANU and with his hard work his company became one of the leading IT Network companies in Nagpur as well as in the Vidharbh region. His IT Company gave a strong competition to companies like HCL, ZENITH, WIPRO and MODI OLIVETTIs. Gradually he began to venture in scientific Instrumentation dealing in some of the world’s leading brands.
With a bourne appetite for risk, he took a bold and risky step to enter the new IT startup Industry. It was a cloud-based IT Healthcare Solution start-up www.IndiaOPD.com for the Healthcare professionals across the country with QuSys as the holding firm.
This website has now become a big relief for the people who found medical assistance as a difficulty. It offers them the online presence, location pointers, online appointment; multi-clinic appointments which are 100% validated appointments, and efficient OPD Management. This has reduced the patient wait-time by almost 90%. It helps maintain health records and allows health camp facilitation. It now effects less crowded OPDs freeing 50-70% of the OPD FSI. Time or Token Based Appointment is probably first of its kind in the history of healthcare, he claims. patient, Health & Disease analytics and validated data for Research Paper Presentation is available anywhere & anytime for the Doctors. Patient Records for healthcare professionals 24*7, OPD Consulting, OPD Outsourcing, and the unique tablet enabled digitization of handwritten prescription in any language for perpetual storage and retrieval for both doctor and patient is easily available now through IndiaOPD.
The challenge to develop something for all healthcare professionals like Allopaths, Ayurveda, Homeopaths, Siddha, Unani , Physiotherapists, Psychologists and Psychotherapists, Naturopaths, etc. covering the entire spectrum of care takers made his firm QuSys bring in a drastic approach towards taking care of the inherent fault lines in the existing solutions. Mr.Patrikar is now a role model and the nation looks forward to know about its future benefits.
Q. What are your upcoming challenges related to your forte that is healthcare?
Ans. According to him, Healthcare facilitation for a nascent digitally-equipped country at a population figure of 1.336 billion people constituting approximately 18% of the world population but generating only 7% of the Gross World Income of 490 Trillion is the biggest challenge. Therefore his prime focus will be to increase the usage amongst all practitioners which is a challenging task but it can be accomplished sooner or later with the new Government going all throttle on the Digitisation front.
Q. Do you see opportunities in this field and if yes then can you explain us?
Ans. Immense, he says. In a way, India is all set to utilize the best of the Digital World for challenges it encounters when it comes to Healthcare delivery. But the socil fabric &culture is very diverse in every state. Even other problems like illiteracy, language, superstitions offer challenges. People would benefit with doctors onboarding and reaping benefits from IndiaOPD. Availability of Internet connections at an appreciable speed and data capacity even in B and C Class cities and towns is , for us, the best and biggest enablers and game changers in the mind set of the people topped by abundance of Smartphone options at every price point.
Q. What is your Action Plan for the coming year and many other upcoming years?
Ans. We jumped into IT Healthcare after identifying the grey dots. The dots now need to be connected and we are slowly but steadily doing that to create a larger solution basket for Doctors and Patient alike. The connect is being quantized. www.IndiaOPD.com is on its journey; though long, to achieve it on the OPD Front. Coming year we are focusing on onboarding at least 10000 Healthcare Professionals to effect 100 Million appointments online and onboard 1 Lac Docs in the next 5 Years.
Q. What shall be the Pros and Cons of this venture?
Ans. Luckily, the challenges faced and solved by the Developed countries have left a ready reckoner for Healthcare roadmap adoption for developing countries like India. It’s a matter of time and sheer government will coupled with enthusiastic reciprocation by the Healthcare community and the society, that this vertical can reap the benefits of technology for effective and best healthcare for all. All stake holders on a shareable platform creating an MDS (Minimum Data Set ) should be the first step towards an Integrated compatible solution. This can be achieved either through Standard Input Formats or Unified Onboarding Solution.
Q. You are a role model for the young entrepreneurs; would you like to give any suggestion or a message for their bright future?
Ans: Believe in Yourself. Get driven by your conscience. Leave your imprint. No smooth sailing for anybody on this earth!
We ended our questions with this message while discussing his personal life(off record). He mentioned the unflinching help and support from Family and Friends. He told about his contribution towards the society like his association with Vidarbha Computer Media Dealer’s Welfare Association ( VCMDWA) as a founder Trustee and activities through CompEx, being Secretary of Janata Shikshan Mandal an 84-Year-old pre-independence era Educational Society and his association with Rotary International. He had been serving the society through these channels.
He can be reached on viren@qusys.co.in