This startup is bringing vacant Southeast Asian hospital rooms into the sharing economy
Uber and Airbnb have long been stars of the sharing economy. In other areas of society, entrepreneurs are also trying to match demand with untapped assets and services. HD, a Bangkok-based startup, is applying the business model to healthcare in Southeast Asia.
HD operates a platform that brings together three parties: surgeons in private practice, patients seeking lower cost surgery, and vacant operating rooms in hospitals. The model may seem a little counter-intuitive to Westerners, but Southeast Asia's medical system relies on a very different patient-hospital dynamic.
Sheji Ho, co-founder and CEO of HD, came up with the idea when he saw Thai surgeons advertising on Facebook to attract private clients. Dual practice is "very common" for doctors in Southeast Asia, observed Ho, who previously co-founded aCommerce, an e-commerce tool in Southeast Asia.
“They graduate working for the best hospitals, but they are poorly paid, so they also work in private hospitals where they earn money,” he says in an interview.
>In Southeast Asia, people go straight to the hospital when they get sick. The problem with public hospitals, Ho says, is that they have very long lines, so doctors try to lure patients to the private facilities where they work. “Doctors [in the region] are a bit like merchants who operate on different platforms,” he says.
Forty percent of healthcare spending in Southeast Asia was paid out of pocket in 2018, according to the World Health Organization, compared to 29.8% in Europe and 32.4% in the Americas. As there is no central platform providing cost transparency, patients often end up paying a high price.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, swathes of surgery wards suddenly became free as Thailand, a popular destination for medical tourism, lost international patients. The oversupply was exacerbated by the country's pre-pandemic hospital building frenzy, Ho noted, as the government bet on an aging population and rising land values.
"Organically, hospitals wanted to use our platforms," says Ho. And since HD brings them customers, it can negotiate lower room rates. Patients undergoing surgeries such as thyroid, hemorrhoids and HD orthopedic surgery pay 15-20% less than market prices.
Why not provide a meeting point for all these needs? This is how HD launched its surgery service under the private label HDcare two months ago. The platform is now based on supplying more than 20 operating rooms across Thailand and Indonesia, according to Ho, with the potential to access more than 1,500 healthcare providers already on its platform. form, and has over 40 types of surgeries lined up. The plan is to expand the service to 200 surgeries performed per quarter by Q4 2023.
Amazon for Health ServicesHD's surgical platform is a new addition to its established business, a marketplace for outpatient services. The model has proven itself in the massive healthcare market in neighboring China, where JD.com, Alibaba's big domestic rival, runs a similar e-commerce operation selling third-party healthcare services like vaccinations, health, imaging sessions and minor surgeries.
The lack of primary care in Southeast Asia means that people either have to ask friends for referrals or make multiple trips to hospitals before they find the right doctor and the right treatment.< /p>
This is in contrast to the United States, where 75% of adults had primary care physicians in 2015 to treat common ailments and are only referred to hospitals for urgent and specialized treatment.
>Like Airbnb, HD started to integrate hospitals and clinics by performing many heavy lifting tasks like helping customers set up their product pages. "But it's also our fluke," Ho says. "SaaS is still too early for Southeast Asia."
HD takes a share of transactions and charges registration fees to healthcare providers, similar to how a conventional e-commerce platform monetizes. It also offers health marketing solutions to vendors on its platform, similar to how Amazon Ads and Tmall Ads enable brands to increase reach and performance.
Uber and Airbnb have long been stars of the sharing economy. In other areas of society, entrepreneurs are also trying to match demand with untapped assets and services. HD, a Bangkok-based startup, is applying the business model to healthcare in Southeast Asia.
HD operates a platform that brings together three parties: surgeons in private practice, patients seeking lower cost surgery, and vacant operating rooms in hospitals. The model may seem a little counter-intuitive to Westerners, but Southeast Asia's medical system relies on a very different patient-hospital dynamic.
Sheji Ho, co-founder and CEO of HD, came up with the idea when he saw Thai surgeons advertising on Facebook to attract private clients. Dual practice is "very common" for doctors in Southeast Asia, observed Ho, who previously co-founded aCommerce, an e-commerce tool in Southeast Asia.
“They graduate working for the best hospitals, but they are poorly paid, so they also work in private hospitals where they earn money,” he says in an interview.
>In Southeast Asia, people go straight to the hospital when they get sick. The problem with public hospitals, Ho says, is that they have very long lines, so doctors try to lure patients to the private facilities where they work. “Doctors [in the region] are a bit like merchants who operate on different platforms,” he says.
Forty percent of healthcare spending in Southeast Asia was paid out of pocket in 2018, according to the World Health Organization, compared to 29.8% in Europe and 32.4% in the Americas. As there is no central platform providing cost transparency, patients often end up paying a high price.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, swathes of surgery wards suddenly became free as Thailand, a popular destination for medical tourism, lost international patients. The oversupply was exacerbated by the country's pre-pandemic hospital building frenzy, Ho noted, as the government bet on an aging population and rising land values.
"Organically, hospitals wanted to use our platforms," says Ho. And since HD brings them customers, it can negotiate lower room rates. Patients undergoing surgeries such as thyroid, hemorrhoids and HD orthopedic surgery pay 15-20% less than market prices.
Why not provide a meeting point for all these needs? This is how HD launched its surgery service under the private label HDcare two months ago. The platform is now based on supplying more than 20 operating rooms across Thailand and Indonesia, according to Ho, with the potential to access more than 1,500 healthcare providers already on its platform. form, and has over 40 types of surgeries lined up. The plan is to expand the service to 200 surgeries performed per quarter by Q4 2023.
Amazon for Health ServicesHD's surgical platform is a new addition to its established business, a marketplace for outpatient services. The model has proven itself in the massive healthcare market in neighboring China, where JD.com, Alibaba's big domestic rival, runs a similar e-commerce operation selling third-party healthcare services like vaccinations, health, imaging sessions and minor surgeries.
The lack of primary care in Southeast Asia means that people either have to ask friends for referrals or make multiple trips to hospitals before they find the right doctor and the right treatment.< /p>
This is in contrast to the United States, where 75% of adults had primary care physicians in 2015 to treat common ailments and are only referred to hospitals for urgent and specialized treatment.
>Like Airbnb, HD started to integrate hospitals and clinics by performing many heavy lifting tasks like helping customers set up their product pages. "But it's also our fluke," Ho says. "SaaS is still too early for Southeast Asia."
HD takes a share of transactions and charges registration fees to healthcare providers, similar to how a conventional e-commerce platform monetizes. It also offers health marketing solutions to vendors on its platform, similar to how Amazon Ads and Tmall Ads enable brands to increase reach and performance.
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