Technology enables women to access medicare from home in complete privacy: Statistics

Between January and April 2019, medical consultancy on chat by women increased by 43.9 per cent

With around 5000 consultations a day, Docprime, a Policybazaar group company connected 51 per cent women, who took online consultation from dedicated medical consultants. This leaves the rest, 49 per cent males taking on digital consultation. With the underlining digital gender gap that still persists in India, this transformation seems relevant and going forward, the internet usage is expected to be more gender balanced.

The statistics reveal that between January and April 2019, medical consultancy on chat by women increased by 43.9 per cent. It is hard to ignore the significant jump (almost double) in first two and three months of the year – 24.4 per cent between January and February to 45.4 per cent between January and March. Docprimes’ technology enables women to access medicare from home in complete privacy, all at your finger-tips.

The statistics further reveal that of the 2 lakh consultations made by women, those under the age of 18-40 years aggressively used digital consultancy as a medium to seek medical advice, with a lion’s share of 82 per cent. Apprehensions prevent women from seeking any medical help or openly express their problems. Technology comes to the rescue which bridges this gap and brings privacy when it comes to health related issues for women. A quarter of the consultations revolved around mensuration and women specific health issues, seasonal health issues and sexual wellness. Pain related problems still bother most of the women– nearly 17.3 per cent consultations were sought for pain related issues followed by 12.56 per cent cases concerning pregnancy. 11.95 per cent of the female audiences seek skin related advice.

Ashish Gupta, CEO, Docprime.com said, “Docprime puts the spotlight on need and importance of technology in improving women’s well-being. Women, especially mothers tend to ignore their health as family becomes their priority. Providing them the digital platform like Docprime helps to break the ice as they prefer to consult a doctor while maintaining the privacy.”

He further added,“Access to technology has helped in addressing the increasing health issues of women and provided a better wellbeing. Women under the age group of 40-60 years and above 60 years make up the rest, which is 18 per cent. This age bracket is more vulnerable to health related risks with limited digital literacy, which needs attention.”

Most women under the age group of 18-25 years seek advice regarding sexual wellness (58.7 per cent). Pregnancy and skin issues had a share of 51.9 per cent and 52.1 per cent, respectively. Middle age women mostly consulted on pregnancy (46.6 per cent) and pain related issues (41.1 per cent). It was interesting to note that 21.8 per cent of 40-60 years aged women consulted for pain related problems, forcing us to revisit of our previous statement on limited digital literacy. Around 19 per cent of their cases were related to seasonal health issues.