1. Startup

East Venture Leads Series A Funding for the Healthtech Startup "Smarter Health"

In Indonesia, Smarter Health provides a "Second Medical Opinion" teleconsultation service with specialist doctors from Singapore

Smarter Health announced a series A funding worth of S$ 5.15 million (approximately 54 billion Rupiah) led by East Ventures. The fresh moeny will be used for product development and market expansion in Southeast Asia. Also participated in this round some strategic investors, such as Orbit Malaysia, Citrine Capital, HMI Group, and EMTEK.

The Smarter Health platform facilitates secure exchange of data between insurance companies, healthcare providers and patients. This enables the use of data to guide patient decision making, and increases the accuracy and speed of claims. Future developments will drive greater operational efficiency, effectiveness, and enhance customer security.

After the promising traction in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Smarter Health is looking to further enhance and expand its market and series of solutions.

“We are excited to partner with East Ventures and other strategic investors to realize our vision of being an 'Easy to Access, Affordable and Accountable' healthcare service. We look forward to collaborating with more insurance companies, healthcare providers, and doctors to achieve this vision," Smarter Health's CEO Liaw Yit Ming said in an official statement, Monday (3/1).

East Ventures' Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Willson Cuaca added, "The Covid-19 pandemic has forced insurance companies and healthcare providers to reconsider and restructure their operations strategies by accelerating digital transformation. Smarter Health is here to make healthcare more accessible, affordable and accountable by providing an AI-operable platform.

"We are excited to support Smarter Health in resolving inefficiencies in the health care process between stakeholders in the health ecosystem," Willson added.

One of Smarter Health's solutions in Indonesia is the Second Medical Opinion service, which allows patients to get a complete overview of their medical condition from a collaborative network of specialist doctors carefully curated by Smarther Health.

These specialist doctors come from Singapore and have different medical specialties and disciplines. They practice in major private hospitals such as Elizabeth Novena Hospital, Mount Elizabeth Hospital, Gleneagles Hospital and others for a flat rate of S$250.

Indonesian patients will be scheduled for a 20-minute teleconsultation session and receive a written medical report from the selected specialist within five working days after the consultation session.

Digital transformation for health industry is currently on the spot

The Ministry of Health publishes a roadmap contained in the blueprint of the Indonesian health sector transformation and digitization for 2021-2024. There are three priority agendas for the Ministry, integration and development of data systems, service applications, and ecosystems in the field of health technology (healthtech).

Apart from the right momentum due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the roadmapis haunted by a number of big challenges. It includes the data system and the unbalanced ratio of the number of health workers and room capacity to the total population.

Currently, there are hundreds of applications which data management still based on individual information. In the government, there are more than 400 applications in the health sector, and this number does not include the regional level. This is yet to mention the medical records of 270 million Indonesians, which are yet to be fully digital.

Meanwhile, the current Ministry of Health noted that the ratio of doctors reached 03.8 per 1,000 population, while the ratio of hospital beds was around 1.2 per 1,000 population in Indonesia.

"We have seen how the Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on various things, including changing the way people consult. We must start this transformation and focus on developing platforms and implementing collaborative initiatives with stakeholders. We expect to create a healthy Indonesia and create integrated health platforms," the Chief Digital Transformation Office of the Ministry of Health, Setiaji said.

Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

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