Medtech start-up BookDoc is on a roll and the secret, according to Chief Executive Officer Dato’ Chevy Beh, lies in forging meaningful partnerships within an ecosystem that is aimed at building long-term relationships.
“We are always on the lookout for new initiatives to add value to our healthcare ecosystem,” says the 34-year-old co-founder of BookDoc. “BookDoc may have started with a simple idea of matching patients with doctors but it’s now more than that; it’s about growing our partner and user base.”
The company began in 2015 with the aim of providing a convenient way to match patients to doctors through a mobile app, which has since evolved to connect corporate customers with insurers and syncs with wearable devices such as the Apple Watch and Fitbit.
It counts among its clients Top Glove, Petronas, Malaysia’s Ministry of Health (MOH), KPJ Healthcare and Ramsay Sime Darby Health Care. Regionally, its services are used by PT Siloam International Hospitals in Indonesia and Bumrungrad International Hospital in Thailand.
It’s just the beginning for Beh. In the past nine months alone, Beh has added a string of Malaysian government ministries to its list of partners. These include the Ministry of Education (MOE), the Ministry of Human Resources (MOHR) and the Ministry of Defence.
“The idea is to get large government agencies and its employees onto our Book-Doc platform so that we can expand our healthcare benefits as widely as possible,” he explains. “For example, BookDoc, the MOH and MOE are together promoting healthier lifestyles among Malaysian students in schools by getting them to sign up for the app. Our tie-up with MOHR is to promote a healthy workplace environment at offices.”
Beh believes BookDoc can be the catalyst to promote healthier lifestyles. Behind this effort is the company’s loyalty platform dubbed Activ, which aims to reward people for setting fitness goals and exercising.
He says Activ is designed to create a “wow” factor to motivate people to take care of their health and be recognized for their efforts.
“We’ve partnered with hundreds of retailers, and BookDoc users who meet their exercise targets can, for example, redeem their rewards at over 1,600 offline locations as well as with online partners in 12 countries.”
Beh says the Activ loyalty program is constantly evolving based on what its users are doing with the BookDoc app.
“We collect a lot of data, such as the frequency of visits, the different health screening packages and exercise data from smartwatches connected to BookDoc. “Our app can then target specific users with different offers and rewards,” Beh explains, adding that all data collected complies with guidelines in the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act to safeguard patient health information.
Beh says in the near future, BookDoc’s ecosystem will grow exponentially. He is currently working on securing another government partnership before the end of the year that will add 1.6 million Activ users to its existing 500,000 members.
“We are continuing to grow our corporate customers and reward partners, and have plans to add features like telehealth and remote monitoring,” he says.
