CHURCH STREET: Competing for space in the crowded world of phone applications are two health and fitness Apps, developed by home-grown start-ups.
While one caters to the post-prescription needs of patients, the other provides information about medicines. The two apps, Health PIE-Mobile nurse and Ausodhyatmika, relatively new entrants to a list of health and fitness apps have attracted more than 10,000 downloads in a short span.
Both apps are free for download.
Ausodhyatmika provides two types of medicine search: based on names and based on constituents. Apart from providing information about constituents of the medicine, dosage, side-effects and other details, it also provides a list of alternate medicine having the same constituents.
The app tries to address information asymmetry, with respect to varieties and cost of various medicines, by providing a second professional opinion regarding the medicines prescribed.
Following its recent launch, several updates have been released by its developer, and is being run by Krishna Kant Tiwari. “It empowers common people of India with the knowledge of medicines, so as to curb the prescription scam,” Tiwari said.
Health-PIE serves a completely different purpose. It decodes doctor’s prescription, digitises it and sends daily reminders to patients about medication intake.
The app provides reminders based on the prescription of the doctor and also stores vital statistics about family members, such as vaccination charts, blood test reports or details regarding other ailments.
Localised alerts on diseases, alerts to family members in case a patient misses his/her medication and an access to past health records.
The objective of the App is to bring in technology to improve health of patients, said a spokesperson for mTatva, the firm that developed the App.