DRIVING THE FUTURE OF DIAGNOSTICS

CrelioHealth CEO & Co-Founder Abhimanyu Bhosale is dovetailing big tech and a bigger vision to connect healthcare providers and customers seamlessly, manage data better and take smarter decisions.

Abhimanyu Bhosale is the Co-founder and CEO of CrelioHealth, a team of young enthusiasts who are passionately building a best-in-class product line in the space of healthcare diagnostics with the overarching goal of delivering a more digital & connected experience for customers. It is a team of dogged visionaries who are placing diagnostics data right at the heart of the healthcare ecosystem with a vision to connect healthcare providers and customers on a single, seamless environment. The organization’s mission is profound yet simple: To empower people to make better decisions through easy access to information. 

“Problems can be solved the easy way or the right way. We pride ourselves in solving it the right way. For Healthcare Providers, we not only help them work remotely, but also efficiently. We help them visualize their finances and operations with analytics, charts and statistics while maintaining the focus on the patient. For customers, we help them manage their medical records without having to do anything – by bringing our understanding of healthcare and analytics to help them manage health better and more easily”, says Abhimanyu, compactly underscoring the essence and impact of the ahead-of-the-curve idea he evangelizes. 

THE SAGA BEGINS 

Born and bred in Pune - a city that lives in the dynamic intersection of heritage, culture and modernity - Abhimanyu was a first child and, in his own words, “spoilt by his parents” who indulgently showered their love on him. His dad, a businessman, started his life in agriculture and grew learning & reading about growing exotic horticultural varieties of fruits, herbs & plants. He used to take the young Abhimanyu to the farms to show the lad what he would be growing next. An avid technophile, he also introduced computers to his workplace as early as 1997, teaching Abhimanyu how to type, use Excel and Word files when the latter was just 7 years old. The internet was soon added to that list. The seeds of lifelong curiosity had been firmly planted in the young, impressionable mind. 

The man reminisces, “I always had lot of interest in technology and always relished experimenting with new things in my free time. That’s pretty much how I picked up  Web development, Photoshop & Interface design by the end of high-school – an edifying exposure that made it amply clear to me that computer science was where my interest lay. On cue, I pursued my Bachelors in Computer Science Engineering in 2009 in PICT Pune, one of the best CompSci schools in the country. First few years of my engineering were slow, especially for someone like me who’s not great in academic studies. Before long however, I was avidly building my design portfolio online, and soon got my first internship break in a Startup called IntouchApp whose founder I had met on Twitter. He liked my work and gave me a chance to design their mobile experience. I interned part-time with those folks for slightly more than a year. During this time, we happened to win the YourStory Best Productivity App Award circa 2011. This was also the period when I met another founder in Pune whose company was called Praxify, and which was a healthcare tech company. I and my eventual Co-Founder Mukund interned at Praxify for a year. Notably, we worked on a project that could convert any ECG device to a cloud enabled ECG, which made the ECG available to any remote doctor or patient in real-time. Not minutes, but just seconds. The technology was quite trivial, but applications were huge.” 

That, in fact, is where Abhimanyu got his first exposure to Healthcare, an experience that was to change the course of his destiny. A few months after graduation, he and Mukund gave birth to their brainchild LiveHealth, a name that was subsequently edited to CrelioHealth. The rest, as they say, is history. 

TURNING POINT 

So what was the big turning point or Eureka Moment that disrupted his journey, causing him to take a ‘right turn’, so to speak? Abhimanyu ponders before answering, “I’d say no single moment, but definitely a string of experiences each of which influenced my personal take on my life deeply, steering me towards the path destiny had ear-marked for me. It was not that I wouldn’t have started a company; I think being from the business background family, I always would have founded my ‘own thing’. But there is no denying that there were certain instances and incidents that drove me towards healthcare, and made me more ‘ready’ for my eventual calling. 

The first one occurred during my graduation years. My grandfather developed a clot in his brain and died in the hospital after 9 months of being unresponsive. I used to be by his side, often having hundreds of questions about his condition and solutions. I think that incident has stayed with me even now. 
The second took place when I interned in a Startup as mentioned earlier, which instilled in me the realization that it was not impossibly hard to build one’s own company, after all. 

I think these two - out of many - have had a pivotal impact in my thinking.”

RESPONDING TO A BURNING NEED

So what is the big need-gap Abhimanyu’s venture is addressing and fulfilling today? Could he capture its essence in brief for us? The idea-driven individual helpfully delves into the nuts-and-bolts-details, “We help Diagnostic Labs scale their operations multi-fold with technology and transform the patient experience. Today, more than ever, every individual has access to a phone and is connected online. But healthcare delivery hasn’t kept pace with this development, remaining traditional - especially when you consider the broad bunch of players in the healthcare providing space. We offer the best technologies and tools to automate diagnostic lab operations and take the patient communication bar perceptibly higher”. 

UPPING THE BAR 

As it takes on the lacuna, Abhimanyu’s idea is unleashing dual impact in the healthcare space. He elaborates, “Worldwide, the Healthcare sector today has two big challenges - One : Improving access & affordability to care, and Two: Improving the quality of healthcare. Quality & access are two dimensions which determines the effectiveness of healthcare eco-systems. Our products improve productivity for Diagnostic Labs, giving them ability to scale quality with the help of technology and elevate the aspect of accessibility for Patients, Doctors & Institutions of Healthcare.

WOES & FOES

No journey worth travelling comes without its hurdles. Abhimanyu, in particular, has chosen a sector that is amongst the most cluttered, complex and competitive globally. So what were the setbacks he had had to break past, and what have been the learnings gained? Abhimanyu opens up.
“Healthcare is complicated: On one side it requires a ton of know-how & experience to be a doctor, and on the other, one must carry a deep sense of empathy to serve patients well. It is not always easy to scale that kind of combination and replicate that kind of commitment. 
There are many systemic, economic and behavioral roadblocks when it comes to Heathcare - specifically in the Indian region. Not surprisingly, we have had our fair share of set-backs - mostly during early stages of the company. Everything from losing an important customer due to pricing issues to cash crunch in operations. We have always emerged stronger, though”, he smiles, revealing the quiet, richly deserved satisfaction of a weather-beaten survivor who has prevailed over adversary.   

ALLIES AND ACCOMPLICES 

The flip side - that of support received and friendships gained - is an equal reality for most self-made entrepreneurial success stories that have had to endure baptism-by-fire, and Abhimanyu’s chronicle is no different. He is quick to give credit where it’s due, confiding: “I have been fortunate to have had the company of investors and friends who have played a strategic and defining role in our journey - be it helping us build better go-to-market roadmaps, connecting us with the right networks to speed up growth and product adoption, or simply being a rock of inspiration and moral support.”

THE LEARNINGS

What have been the biggest learnings and takeaways across this eventful and enriching arc? “The important takeaway we had for doing business in India was to change customer behavior for payment collections. It might be a tactical learning, but was very necessary for us to do business in India.”

ADVICE FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERS

What advice would he leave to the next generation / aspirants in his domain, we enquire. Abhimanyu is happy to oblige : “I’d say, take big risks early in your life. Take more than you think you can do, because often you can do better than you think. Starting early make your fail early and gives you sufficient time to bounce back and move onto new horizons. Starting early also brings a ton of exposure and experience without serious financial or personal consequences. When you have nothing, you cannot lose anything. And success, if it happens, can be interpreted happy bonus – and a catalyst for bigger milestones!”

LASTING LEGACY 

So how would he like to be remembered by the community he is helping take giant steps forward? What would he, in short, want his legacy to be? Abhimanyu says, “Well, I think it’s early for me to think about legacy. I’d want to first make a truly lasting contribution to society and maybe then start thinking about it. What I can say for certain however is that I remain as motivated as ever to contribute back to the world in any small capacity possible. If the products & tools we offer can deliver significant impact in the lives of thousands of healthcare workers, diagnostic labs & ultimately the patients - it would be a pretty big milestone for me: One I would, in posterity, look back fondly upon and be happy to be remembered for.”

MESSAGE FOR VOH READERS

Any message to readers through the Voice of Healthcare Platform? “Healthcare deserves our attention and we need to make more active investments. Each one of us will need it someday ourselves”, Abhimanyu signs off prophetically, adding “Thank you for taking time to read about my story!”

*This story is published by VOH team*