Pradeep Goel on Solve.Care’s global telehealth exchange

0:01i'm ashton addison from event chain for investment pitch media in the crypto coin show and today on blockchain interviews we have pradeep goyal the ceo of solve care pradeep welcome back to the show and thanks for taking the time to be here today ashton is my pleasure and i'm looking forward to our session today thank you for having me you're welcome and likewise i would love

0:20to start with an overview a high level of solve care for those who didn't see our last interview we can talk about some of the solutions and how you're disrupting the health tech industry and then we can dive into the details sure so soft care is a healthcare platform which was built with the idea that digital health networks take a very long time effort and risk in being designed

0:43configured and launched and i personally oversaw many digital health networks launched in the us around insurance benefits around employee benefits around public health benefits and they all took far too long were too expensive and ultimately failed to get the adoption we wanted and they failed to deliver the results we wanted and with the advent of

1:03blockchain with the advent of the ability to decentralize data identity transactions and payments i realized an opportunity exists to really make the an equivalent of salesforce.com platform on blockchain for healthcare which allows different network participants to safely participate in multiple networks and do so on terms that are acceptable to consumers and patients and their

1:29families so basically solve dot care is really designed to facilitate a better care coordination better benefit coordination better payment coordination it uses blockchain as a coordination fabric and really bridges the gap between having a pure blockchain technology and the need to build to have a complete functionality to build an actual consumer-friendly

1:53digital health network definitely that's a great intro pretty and yeah you mentioned there there there are quite a few issues in the industry right now uh some on the on the provider side in that it's really expensive and it takes a long time to set up and you know there's all these moving parts and and it's tough to coordinate that especially since the industry has been

2:12around for so long and all this new technology is coming in with innovation and they're trying to you know put one piece in at a time without having to redo everything and and moving to like a global telehealth system is is a big innovation for an industry that's not uh you know just ready to overhaul all their technology and so on the patient side um it's a bit

2:34of a different experience i'm sure now moving to having the lockdowns moving more into telehealth virtual and digital for all their files and access to kind of healthcare worldwide as well and remotely can you talk about uh some of those changes and solutions that that you're providing uh in this move to digital and then into blockchain uh through solve care solutions

2:59i'll give you three very concrete examples to make it real for for people who are looking at from a consumer patient perspectives the one network we have just launched on our platform is a global telehealth exchange and the idea of this network is to allow providers and patients worldwide to connect with each other on a purely voluntary need basis so it's an exchange

3:23that matches physicians anywhere in the world with patients anywhere in the world but it matches them per the rules of various jurisdictions in which the patient or the doctor is based under on the needs of the patient the availability of the doctor the specialty of the doctor and so on it's a very complex matching system very much like how you match stock

3:45buyers and stock sellers here we are matching doctors who are available let's say in ghana for a patient in nigeria who has a specific need that this doctor can meet and also from a regulatory compliance and from a specialization and payment and cost so a multi-faceted matching network which runs in a purely autonomous manner but doctors sign up

4:13based on the type of practice they want to do and patients sign up based on the need they have and the system matches them and it also facilitates real-time digital payments using solved token it allows the patient to immediately book an appointment and the way the system works is the patient puts out a request on the blockchain saying i need a pediatrician in the next four

4:33hours and i need a pediatrician that is female and my avail my needs are next four hours and i'm looking for a physician worldwide or looking in africa or looking in asia or i'm looking for a physician in my geographic geography where i live and that event goes on the blockchain and from there every physician on the network worldwide can read and respond to that event

4:57automatically and the physicians that respond to that event automatically will get matched with the patient and the patient can choose you don't need to have any kind of pre-existing relationship you don't need to go search a provider directory and randomly pick the name of the patient physician that you might like the system does the match for you based

5:17on purely empirical metrics and every transaction between patient and physician is then recorded in an anonymous way so that there is no question about about any um consents or rights or privacy all those are handled by the blockchain so this is one way to truly democratize access to healthcare now compared to every other telemedicine solution on the planet

5:42where the telemedicine solution network is predetermined only certain doctors who are on the network can only see certain patients who are allowed on the network so both sides are controlled the demand is controlled the supply is controlled and there is hardly any flexibility or freedom and costs are predetermined by the network sponsor the telehealth solution everything is

6:05controlled for you we are the opposite we are the open network and the only reason it can be open and secure is because of our platform built on the blockchain so this is one a second really interesting example for health digital health networks and blockchain and we have done built many networks but i will give a few examples to illustrate so we have built a system on which you

6:27can have a non-emergency medical transportation system a network where we have connected with lyft and uber and we can essentially allow a patient who needs to go see a doctor to automatically determine what is the cost of traveling from their home or their school or their work to the physician's office and back and that transaction can be paid for by third parties like

6:53your employer like your friends and family like even your doctor or your government agency like in the us medicare or medicaid or in uk the national health service and that trend that transportation is tied to a clinical appointment so and that can be cannot be misused the pickup point and the delivery point and the return point back to home or work

7:19can be fully managed and can therefore eliminate the the several problems around man doing clinical transport systems cost availability you know fraud and misuse cancellation of appointments no shows all that issue goes away the doctor the patient and the third party paying for this ride are are on the same fabric but identity of people can be fully secured

7:44and protected so the benefit payer does not need to know by the identity of the beneficiary only they need to know that it is a beneficiary very complex problem that happens that requires a lot of people a lot of middlemen today in government programs eliminates all that and our estimate is that in a single state in a one state out of 50 in the united

8:04states this program would save 50 million dollars a year or more for the u.s taxpayer each year so those are that's a different kind of a network the third kind of network we have launched is around diabetes care coordination so when you have diabetes you got to have a primary care physician an optometrist an ophthalmologist an endocrinologist you probably need to

8:24see a cardiologist you'll probably need to see a podiatrist for foot inspection so diabetes care requires a lot of coordination and everybody needs to be in sync with each other and yet rarely are all these people somehow connected to a single emr they never are so in the diabetes care model we allow for patients symptoms and needs to be published on the chain without

8:50de-identified where they cannot patient identities always protected and all the subscribers to the patient's wallet have access to certain events allowing them to do their job so insurance company gets certain events on which they can do billing the podiatrist gets their certain events on the basis of which they can schedule an annual foot exam the cardiologists get certain events on

9:11their wallet for them to know when they should ask for a updated ekg and this coordination between patient their family their friends their co-workers their employer who needs to give them time off to go get the exam done all that happens in a network care network on our platform so these are three distinct examples one is around you know teleconsultation the other is

9:33around transportation third is around chronic care management but they're just examples we have dozens more networks being planned on our platform one is around suicide prevention where teenagers can report in their their you know their thoughts and their worries and their stresses in a fully anonymized manner and connect with a psychologist uh who can intervene uh based on the

9:58level of risk and threat that the the child is the teenager is feeling thereby reducing the incidence of suicide we're building another network around helping physicians who are dealing with trauma and stress of not being able to provide enough care particularly in the pandemic so essentially caring for care providers where we connect physicians to other

10:17physicians who can coach them through difficult periods overwhelm through multiple shifts not getting enough rest feeling like they're not going to help enough patients physicians are under a tremendous amount of stress from curvid and other you know the mortality rate is super high so caring for care providers is another example in all of these there is a theme

10:37the theme is the blockchain facilitates private secure communication between patient doctor or other family members it allows for coordination of the event level without exposing unnecessary information about the event generator or the event receiver and it it changes the model so we expect over the next six months to see a whole host of new networks come out on the care platform

11:03we have five networks today built and we expect dozens more to be launched over the next 12 months great examples pradeep and i think that they are in such timely need with the pandemic last time we spoke you know the pandemic had already started you had just launched the global telehealth exchange i know that you're expanding into new jurisdictions

11:26i've seen some recent updates surrounding that can you talk about since we last spoke uh how is the growth the adoption and the feedback on the global health telehealth exchange going yeah so global telehealth exchange was the first network i referred to earlier i'll be very happy to talk about what we have done so we have expanded our vision from regional

11:48to global so that's first thing we have gone um and what we have done now is we've launched it in 20 countries so where physicians in 20 countries are available to patients in those 20 countries and the next step that we are we are headed towards um is to expand the network to about 66 countries which we should we expect to do over the next few weeks

12:12um and eventually our goal is to cover all 195 countries in the world both from a patient demand and a physician supply perspective but but if you think about what we have really done is very remarkable is that we're using the blockchain to coordinate the various compliance needs of a physician based on where they are licensed to practice with the patient where they are

12:33currently located or where they're traveling to or where they're resident of and linking them in a manner that is that can be that can be validated by regulators and auditors to be compliant with the local laws so in reality if you take 195 if you can take if you can permit any patient or a patient in any country to be able to find a doctor across every

12:56country you would end up with about 38 000 regulatory cons you know pairs or considerations or relationships then for each regulatory pair what we call a patient provider pair we will end up with many considerations like insurance requirements you know cryptocurrency credit card data storage and privacy patient right bills like hipaa gdpr so you end up with millions of

13:24combinations of legal and uh and regulatory combinations nobody has ever attempted to even do this across more than one within the boundary of single countries where most telehealth solutions exist and no matter how big your healthcare healthcare solution is tends to be inside a country there's a big companies in the us that have telehealth solutions for

13:44united states you have big companies in uk that have telehealth solutions for uk now if they even if the same company goes to us they stand up a new network in the u.s if their company goes to canada they stand up a new telehealth network in canada if they go to singapore they set up a new network in singapore nothing connects these networks there is no real global model of me

14:06being able to find a swedish pediatrician for my kid just because i feel that i want to have him be treated on a swedish care protocol that model doesn't exist you can pick up the phone and call your grandmother in sweden and get her advice but you cannot pick up the phone and call if a pediatrician in sweden and get their advice why is that how come i can call my untrained you

14:29know unofficial physician called grandma anywhere get her advice and take take that into account but i can't seek an advice from a trained pediatrician in germany without going to germany or without having some personal connection we need to break these unnecessary boundaries but we need to do that in a way that protects patients rights protects providers rights and allows

14:51this relationship to happen inside a regulatory promisi permitted relationship so this global telehealth exchange uses blockchain to not only allow these connections but also uses it as a way to protect both sides should there be a question about who saw whom and under what license agreement or consent model did they see each other that protection is provided by the

15:16platform and by the blockchain so it's the necessary level of auditability as well so at this point in time we are moving aggressively to launch about one third of the planet is going to be covered in the next release and then eventually we expect over the next 12 months to really cover the entire globe where a patient in nigeria when they search for a physician

15:39in fine physicians not just in nigeria but essentially in any part of the planet and then it's up to them to choose the physician and the type of consult they want and they can also choose based on cost availability specialization where the physician is registered where the physician went to school on and on and on uh but the exchange does all the matching so physician

16:01doesn't have to become an expert the idea is that a poor single well a working class single parent who doesn't have time to go take their kids to a pediatrician during working hours needs to be able to find a pediatrician who is available at 10 pm at night when she's home and the only time she can see everyone and we need to be able to find the pediatrician available

16:22in that next 30 minutes and the choice is very immediate geography or halfway across the planet and that exchange should give them all those options so so gthg in my mind is um as we refer to global terror health exchange is a foundational restoration of patients rights as a parent as a as an adult as a child of a of a parent who needs care we need to restore choice we need to

16:50restore access we need to make things affordable and we should be able to choose the equivalent of our grandmother anywhere on the planet and say but you are not my grandma but you are equivalent to me because you are a trained physician with certification in canada and i want to speak to you and get your opinion so that's what gth is definitely great examples pretty

17:12and as you continue to grow out uh into these other jurisdictions and make it truly global in the next 12 months which is very impressive what are some of the uh parties that you need to help achieve these goals are you looking for more strategic partnerships uh more more physicians and and healthcare providers or just more patients and or more regulatory bodies

17:33to accept and get into these countries so first and foremost our focus is on enabling the physician to practice medicine the way they want when they want with whom they want and the price point they want to practice so our gth today is a patient paid direct payment from patient to provider model of course the patient can then seek reimbursement from their insurance

17:55company you know as an auto network provider that's fine but really it's a direct access direct payment instant appointment instant telemedicine uh framework having said that we have physicians now signed up for gthe from over 40 countries uh so doctors from different you know from 40 different countries have said i love it i want to be practicing medicine online so our goal

18:19is of course to cover every country on the planet uh or at least every country where we are legally allowed to do business um and there will be a handful of countries where because of political or regulatory concerns we will not go but i think that's going to be something you can count on your hands on your fingers every other country we expect to have

18:38physicians and we are reaching out to physicians and we're getting tremendous response physicians love the restoration of dignity and rights and um and choice for them as well right one of my physicians said to me i would rather practice four hours in gth here a day than to spend 40 hours in my office because i do more and i get i get more satisfaction

19:00out of it and some of those hours i can afford to do pro bono and some of them i'll charge for and i'll set my own rates and this is exactly how i want to do it and this particular physician has licenses in three different countries you know grew up in one got their licenses there moved to and did residency another country and have their license there and

19:17then eventually lives in the united states and his point is why can't i practice medicine in all three countries i have licenses in all three why can't i see patients in my home country where i'm fully licensed physician why can't i do see patients in the country i used to live in where i'm fully licensed still board certified and of course i am currently living in the us and i have

19:35license there as well the answer is you should be able to but but practically that's very very hard and gthe can do that he can simply publish his practice to have three countries where he's authorized and the exchange will automatically match this position to all the patients where he's legally allowed to see whether it's those three countries or 30 others

19:56so the point here is that this is giving physicians enormous flexibility uh and and restoration of their rights as a physician so having said that our objective is to work with regulators worldwide wherever there is regulation that is unclear to make sure they understand what we are doing we don't wish to do ever harm the patient we don't wish to ever break the law

20:18so we are working through these scenarios country by country but we are growing rather quickly because you're finding a lot of appetite for what we're doing so to answer your question coming back to it positions is who we focus on physicians automatically have panel location that they activate on gthe which makes it very easy to grow quickly and we always are looking to

20:41engage with the regulator wherever we can so just in recent very recently like in the last 48 hours we have engaged with the regulator in korea to talk about how where telemedicine in korea is largely prohibited but we are working with them to understand in what scenarios does gthe make more sense to launch in korea and there's a lot of appetite for it of

21:04course the scenarios will be will be well defined the regulations have to be coded into the into the matching algorithm but those are relatively quick things for us to do so similar conversations are happening in the middle east similar conversations happening in india there is hardly any i mean this you know any continent that is inhabited today we are having conversations there and

21:25plan to grow there rather quickly so the idea is that auditability transparency instant payments using digital assets fully secured record transmission between parties uh absolute control over consents and data and patient privacy is always protected and and hundred percent in their hands those things really make it possible in fact all of those things

21:48make are needed for you to build something like a global telehealth network and we are we are i think the only company on the planet that not only is attempting something so audacious but has actually done it so now it's all about scaling very cool pradeep i love it and it's great to see how quickly you're expanding and if there are more people that are

22:09interested in following along with solve care learning more whether it be physicians regulators patients or other parties what's the best way for them to learn more so solved.care website is www.salt.care we have a very active channel on telegram where we have thousands of people continuously engaged in conversation with us and with each other we have

22:32our normal communication through info at salt dart care where we receive lots of inquiries from worldwide we have a provider relations team that works with physicians to to educate engage enroll and certify them on gthe and we do that at no cost to the physician so they can always reach out to us and we will handle all the proper validation of their

22:55clinical credentials we will make sure that they are who they are and if they are a certified board certified physician in their country of residence then we will bring them on with appropriate profile onto the platform certainly patients can download the care wallet for free on the app store a new version goes out i think in the next 24 hours which will be available in 20 countries

23:14not two uh and then over the next few weeks we'll be increasing that to 66 countries i believe uh and then it goes to the full you know the next round will add more countries so the um there are software is very open and transparent we are our vision and mission always is that what we are doing is so worthwhile and impactful on humanity that we we want to be as transparent as

23:37possible so neither the regulator nor the physician or nor the community should ever be surprised of course we want to protect our intellectual property but beyond that we are continuously informing and educating the market having said that and if anybody wants to reach out to to any of my team members now we are always 24 7 monitoring the the telegram channel and the uh emails

24:02that's how you would connect with us great thank you so much for taking the time today pradeep all the best with self-care moving forward and let's follow up in the near future thank you ashton it's a pleasure as always and thank you for having me really appreciate it you