Getting a doctor’s appointment—especially of a specialist or consultant—can be a daunting task for an ordinary citizen in Bangladesh.

 Ask Abdul Alim, a private service holder residing in Mirpur, he would tell you why.

“My four-year-old daughter was suffering from fever for a prolonged period. I wanted to take her to a paediatrician but couldn’t manage an appointment. Then I learned about Doctorola.”

Alim said that, through Doctorola, he was able to bag an appointment with Dr M Shahjahan at Delta Healthcare. “I am very happy with their service. They are providing true digital service in the healthcare sector,” said a happy Alim.

Like Alim, since its inception in November, 2015,  Doctorola—Bangladesh’s first online doctor’s appointment service—has served more than 152,000 people seeking a doctor’s appointment.

Users who have used the platform to get a doctor’s appointment said that Doctorola was doing more of a social service than a business.

Abdul Mukit, an engineer working in Dhaka who used Doctorola’s service said, “This is a real-time doctor’s appointment and first of its kind. It is helping a lot of people finding an appropriate doctor quickly.”

How did the journey of Doctorola start?

Mohammad Abdul Matin Emon, Managing Director of Doctorola told The Independent that booking “an appointment with the doctor of your choice using your website or mobile app is a common thing in the developed parts of the world”.

But, in Bangladesh, this is a very unique concept, said Emon adding: “We usually rely on the advice of the receptionist at the hospital to book us with a doctor but there is no way to review or research on the doctor before making an appointment.”

“Doctorola wants to change that. This not only gives a ready-to-use health directory to the user but also pampers him with a variety of options in his choice of locality."

Emon said that the idea in its very early stage came from one of their software engineers working in a software company that he earlier worked in. In that stage, it was supposed to be an appointment management application for hospitals.

 “However, my founding team members had a deeper intention to build something that is a business and at the same time is capable of creating an impact on the society. We then worked on the assumption that, maybe, there is also the need for a good information database of doctors that could help treatment-seeking people from different districts travelling all the way to the capital.”

 After that Emon and his small team started visiting hospitals in the city and started talking to patients who were waiting for doctors there. “We learned about their perilous journeys and struggles they had to undertake to reach the capital to seek a doctor’s appointment.”

He said that many of the patients told them about how they suffered due to a delayed diagnosis of their problems. Many told them about their struggles in choosing the right doctor, getting appointments, and of other problems.

 “Based on our research, we decided to come up with an online directory of doctors. But, a question kept bothering us that there was a number existing online directories already. But why were they not serving their purpose?”

They further investigated and found that most of the doctors' addresses, contacts and timings published in those directories were outdated, and their promotions were inadequate, besides there were other issues. They realised that they needed to come up with an appropriate business model to ensure that the directory is always maintained and up-to-date.

“Hence we came up with the idea of building an online appointment platform or marketplace that does not only list doctors for information, but also ensures connecting patients to the right doctors as a service,” said Emon.

How Doctorola works?

Doctorola is a platform that primarily operates a website (www.doctorola.com), a mobile app and a call centre number (16484). People can use any of these to find a suitable doctor and submit a request for an appointment.

“However, these gateways are backed by a huge back office application and databases. It's far from easy maintaining this real-time availability of information of thousands of doctors from hundreds of hospitals and locations,” said Emon.

Emon explained that Doctorola is rather a technology-enabled service powered by a set of integrated processes and resources for maintaining doctors' availability information, booking their appointments, taking feedback from patients, reminding them of further procedures and other related activities.

For listing a doctor on the platform, Doctorola signs agreements either with individual practicing registered doctors or with a hospital/clinic bringing all their doctors on the platform together. The next step is about maintaining regular availability information involving a dedicated relationship team each assigned to a range of doctors. The call centre shoulders the responsibilities of handling all service requests and patient interactions.

To fulfil another important area of need, Doctorola works with an equal priority in creating contents for health awareness and arranging seminars, workshops and programs for engaging with the general mass.

“Our initiative has one of the strongest social media presence in the country with a follower base of almost eight lakh people. Doctorola has been consistent in publishing high-quality health blogs and videos since its inception,” said Emon.

What the doctors say?

Doctorola currently hosts appointments for more than 8897 doctors from almost 600 hospitals in 63 districts of the country. There are general practitioners (i.e. MBBS doctors), dentists, specialists and many senior professors.

Emon said that the best part was that among these doctors, a large number joined Doctorola spontaneously by registering themselves online through their website. “So far, we have been able to make more than 1,52,000 appointments for our member doctors.”

“We maintain a continuous relationship with most of our doctors. We invite them on different programmes and occasions for speaking and sharing knowledge with people. We also invite them from time to time to Doctorola TV (YouTube based channel) to participate in live talks or recorded interviews. We have so far got tremendous support from our doctors.”

Doctors, too, are happy about the service. Prof. Dr. Fawzia Hossain, Professor of Dept. of Gynecology & Obstetrics, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, who is registered with Doctoroal said that Doctorola was making patients’ lives easy.

“It’s not entirely in our hand to manage all the appointments or to see all the patients. When there is a large inflow of patients, managing to see them all become nearly impossible. Doctorola is in a way helping us and, of course, the patients by arranging appointments in a systematic manner.”

Dr Fawzia said that she receives SMSs about appointments from Doctorola. “They also make arrangements with the hospital and clinic. It makes life easier.”

Prof Dr MA Samad, Chief Consultant. Head of the Dept of Nephrology of Labaid Specialized Hospital told The Independent that Doctorola is providing digital service in the healthcare sector. “People are getting benefited because of this,” he said.