Future of digital healthcare platforms in Pakistan

Whenever there’s a conversation about social welfare, healthcare is the topic that is considered to be the most challenging and most important of all.

Providing citizens with proper and timely healthcare is a challenge whose solution is still eluding a number of developed countries around the world. Pakistan, unfortunately, is the country where the topic of healthcare is not brought up as much as it should be. Lack of proper discussion and little to none development in infrastructure has created some deep-rooted problems for the whole healthcare sector in this country.

These healthcare sector issues bothered Pliro CEO Abdul Aziz from a very young age. Being an athlete and avid fan of football, he frequented a lot of different clinics and hospitals due to on-the-field injuries. He was always bewildered by the lack of an integrated system at different hospitals and clinics, depriving patients of ways to easily access their medical records and make appointments with doctors.

Pliro is aiming to be the first platform to overhaul practice management for private healthcare sector

After observing these problems, and nurturing an idea of providing the private healthcare sector with an integrated digital healthcare platform, Abdul Aziz launched the digital healthcare platform back in 2016. In a race with 3 to 4 competitors who are running similar sort of operations, Pliro is aiming to be the first platform to overhaul practice management for the private healthcare sector. By offering private clinics their integrated software solution and bringing them onboard their platform for a distributed healthcare experience, Pliro is slowly revolutionizing how digital healthcare works in Pakistan.

Since its inception in 2016, the platform has made the twin cities (Rawalpindi and Islamabad) its focus and is planning to expand operations to other major cities. More than 500 different doctors have signed up on the platform and are serving their customers in a much more streamlined process than before. Pliro has also partnered with reputed laboratories to launch on-spot collection for a number of different tests, thus saving their patients a trip to the lab to get their test results.

More than 500 different doctors have signed up for Pliro’s integrated solution, target of nearly 5,000 daily google searches

According to Pliro’s research, Google Pakistan registers more than 5,000 different searches related to different ailments and queries for nearby doctors or clinics every day. With those 500 doctors on-board, Abdul Aziz wants to see Pliro become the main target of these searches, providing patients an easy access to both their questions and to a qualified medical professional.

What does the future hold?

Abdul Aziz’s vision for the future of digital healthcare platforms is very clear. He describes his vision in following words:

“What I want for the future of digital healthcare is that there should be a single platform from where patients can log in and see all their medical history from various doctors. They should be able to access their various test results, order new tests, and book appointments from that same platform; without ever having to leave the comfort of their home.”

Providing a streamlined experience for patients visiting any clinic or hospital of their choice is a very ambitious project. Current limitations like lack of proper infrastructure to support such technology in existing institutions and proliferation of technology in rural areas are a big obstacle in making this vision a reality. Pliro, along with current competitors and future entrants into the digital healthcare field, is hoping to overcome these issues one step at a time.

There is no doubt that the future of healthcare, like most other aspects of our lives, is digital in nature. Pliro, being one of the few platforms looking to bring about that future, is proving itself as a window into that future. Although it has a lot of ground to cover before CEO Pliro’s vision comes true, it is still a great platform for users looking to get a medical consultation even today. You can give the platform a try by visiting their homepage or downloading Pliro’s application from Google Play store and Apple Store.