TELEVITAL SOLUTIONS INC: A LEADING NAME IN TELEMEDICINE AND E-LEARNING SOLUTIONS
TeleVital is a cutting-edge IT infra-structure Company, leading the business space in two vital pillars of society – healthcare and education. It works with innovative platforms like Telemedicine and E-learning to improve access to qualified medical care and educational content. TeleVital has an installation base in more than 800 hospitals, clinics and educational institutes in India, Africa, USA, and Japan. TeleVital was envisioned to develop innovative platforms and state-of-the-art solutions that could ease people’s access to vital information and services without the barriers of time and distance.
Starting its journey from 2002 in Silicon Valley, the Company has devised several trendsetting solutions for the world. One of its Crowning Jewels is VitalWare – the first-ever Cloud-based real-time, remote vital signs monitoring software that is endorsed and used by NASA and ISRO. Another of its gems is its software for home care services provided to Set-Top-Box cable subscribers in partnership with Cox Cable and also to many Universities in USA, Mexico and Japan. It’s Smartphone Apps that are widely used in India and in the USA are bringing healthcare to the doorsteps of the patients.
THE ORIGIN
The origin of TeleVital resides in the ingenuity of a veteran entrepreneur Kishore Kumar Rao. During his early years of career, his daughter Deepika was in Mumbai receiving treatment for her nerve damages. Mr. Rao who is a US resident for more than two decades, wanted the specialists from Stanford University and University of California San Francisco to monitor his daughter’s treatment remotely.
This need created the motivation for building the cloud-based telemedicine platform. As such, with the encouragement and seed funding from two successful entrepreneurs – BV Jagadeesh and Kumar Malavalli, he deployed and promoted this platform. NASA’s MedITAC consortium used it in Ecuador in 2002, for the first-ever remote anaesthesia monitoring over the Internet, with the intervention of a specialist from the Virginia Commonwealth University, and saved a life five thousand kilometres away. The product was first of its kind and built the foundation for TeleVital’s growth.
STAYING AHEAD IN THE CURVE
In an era where technology, especially digital, is a constantly evolving platform, it is crucial to stay adaptive to developments. Telecommunication technologies have significantly revamped the face of education and healthcare across the globe. To stay updated, with this evolution, TeleVital’s technical team – in both Bangalore as well as in Santa Clara, California, works with latest innovations especially in connected/wearable medical devices, Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning spaces. Integration of these resources, helps the Company build plausible solutions and addresses their ultimate goal, “to provide best-possible solutions with the predictive and prescriptive analytics based on technological advancements”.
Accommodating modern technologies further ensures the optimal quality and safety for the use by patients. Every software comes with alpha, internal beta and external beta release for quality monitoring and improvement. The Company has an in-house quality assurance team that uses software tools to automate the QA process to find the bugs in the software before external releases. The emphasis on quality, significantly helps them to stay ahead in the race. The profound experience and knowledge reward them with repeat orders further highlighting them as a validated brand name, for telemedicine solutions over the Internet. Referral by satisfied customers grows their client base, and the Company invests in digital marketing as well.
A BRIGHT CAREER CHOICE
As TeleVital has grown into a premier service provider, it has grown as a prospective career choice as well. TeleVital’s ambience is powered by enthusiasm and dexterity. In return for their integrated efforts, the Company organizes team outing a few times a year. The trips are a day filled with entertainment and team building activities. Along with this, employee’s birthdays, sports events, and festivals are organised and celebrated to maintain high morale of the employees.“Each team member of TeleVital is deeply motivated by knowing their individual work, which plays a pivotal role in creating a great impact on society”. Acknowledges Mr Rao
BURGEONING THROUGH THE PANDEMIC
Over the past decade, TeleVital has promoted telemedicine and distance learning as two exemplary services. In the wake of COVID, these two services have become exceedingly more relevant. Several Government and private health practitioners are treating patients remotely, at the patients’ homes. Simultaneously, TeleVital’s distance education platform is used by renowned institutions such as Indian Institute of Science so that classes can be attended remotely. In short, the pandemic and lockdown have made telemedicine and distance education as household names and TeleVital was ready to step in to fill a void created by the pandemic. The technology is being used in the USA today to provide Remote Patient Monitoring and Chronic Care Management solutions to the patients within the newly advancing TeleHealth market, augmented by the pandemic.
On the other hand, TeleVital made sure of the safety and security of its employees. They enabled Work From Home well before lockdown, ensuring freewheeling support and services to clients. All of their in-house meetings and discussion were conducted online, helping everyone stay unified. Venturing on digital platforms, also helped in conducting successful demonstrations to their prospective clients.
REVOLUTIONARY SERVICES FOR BOTH PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR
Throughout time, TeleVital has dazzled both the private and public sector through its services. In 2003, TeleVital was given the chance to work with ISRO, Prof Shivaram Malavalli, Director of TeleVital India, introduced Sateesh Bhat (Co-founder and Chief of TeleVital India Operations), who headed a team of enthusiastic software developers. With this team and with the inputs from ISRO scientists, the company developed the first telemedicine programme for India in the basement of Narayana Hrudayalaya. The product was widely recognised and marketed throughout the country as a turnkey telemedicine solution by ISRO. The product was also deployed in remote islands like Lakshadweep and Andaman & Nicobar, rural regions of Karnataka and Chhattisgarh, and hilly regions of Jammu & Kashmir as well.
TeleVital has made 400 plus telemedicine installations all over India for ISRO, including Army, Air Force, ITBP, and many government and private hospitals. Their technology was also utilized in ‘PAN-African e-Network initiative’, launched by Late Dr Abdul Kalam, Former President of India. Under the initiative, their solutions were used to provide telemedicine consultations from 12 Super Specialty hospitals including Apollo, NH, HCG, AIMS, Amrita hospital, Fortis, and others to 44 countries in the African Union for 8 years. Since 2019, their platform is used by the National Health Mission for the end-to-end telemedicine solutions to 130 CHCs (Community Health Centers) in remote places of Uttar Pradesh to receive specialized teleconsultations in 13 categories, including Pediatrics, Gynecology, Internal medicine, Orthopedics, Neurology, Cardiology, Nephrology, Gastroenterology etc. 1500+ teleconsultations are conducted daily on their platform and more than 165,000 have been completed so far. TeleVital has been recognized as ‘The Telemedicine Company of the Year’ by Frost and Sullivan, in 2009.
Similarly, their technology is used by the Karnataka Government to link 12 super-speciality hospitals in Bangalore with all the District hospitals. Over one lakh consultations were provided in 3 years. Tripura Government is using its solution for statewide ophthalmology services. At the same time, renowned education bodies like Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology have used their digital platform to provide virtual classroom training in many rural high schools in Karnataka. Customer support has been one of the highlights of TeleVital services. The field engineers have provided support services to remotest corners of India including the Himalayas, Northeastern region and also 44 African countries. Many passionate Engineers have provided timely and invaluable support during disaster management situations, such as the Tsunami and Kashmir earthquakes.
PLAUSIBLE PLANS FOR FUTURE
After 18 years of constantly growing its business, TeleVital is looking forward to endeavouring in areas of Automation, Aggregation, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning. TeleVital aspires to expand its reach through collaborative partnership initiatives with Government and private hospitals & clinics to provide end-to-end healthcare services to the rural population.
FROM THE FOUNDER’S DESK
“In spite of obstacles that come in your way, never give up on your aspirations to make a huge societal impact. Be persistent and build a team of like-minded people who equally enjoy the journey”.
