THE GAME CHANGER

Twenty-eight-year-old Serene Cai co-founded mobile medicine platform Speedoc with the intent to change the local healthcare landscape. While there was some scepticism initially, the pandemic has proven that she had the right idea all along.

- Adora Wong

It can be agonising to see a doctor when ill. You not only have to be out of bed, but also wait resignedly in line for your turn.

Why not get a doctor to make a house call instead? After all, as with everything else these days, it can be swiftly arranged for on an app. One that is growing in popularity in Singapore is Speedoc, a platform founded by Dr Shravan Verma and Serene Cai that offers the services of house call doctors, house call nurses and ambulances, as well as medication deliveries and telemedicine (where patients consult doctors via a computeror smartphone) round the clock.

“We set it up to cater to the underserved market of patients who were seeking medical care in the A&E departments, but whose care could actually be managed in the community. This included people who couldn’t or didn’t want to leave their homes, or found it inconvenient to visit clinics or hospitals,” explains Serene, who is also Speedoc’s Head of Partnerships and Projects.

She adds that there’s been a “large uptake” in the consumption of digital healthcare since the company’s launch in 2017 – it now has seven full-time doctors, works with some 50 locums, and has gone from five patients a month to up to 30 patients a day. It also currently boasts nearly 50, 000 active users. But while it has found success, Serene didn’t always have it easy.

TEETHING ISSUES