From Patient to CTO

How I found personal and professional happiness building healthcare technology

My Background

I’ve been a technologist for over 20 years, working around the world. I spent the first 12 years of my career working in global retail and telcos, mainly in western markets such as the UK and Canada. Through those experiences, I developed expertise that I wanted to utilize in different markets and industries. I was particularly excited about the opportunity to leverage technology to improve the health outcomes of those in emerging markets, where 85% of the world lives but where many do not have access to quality healthcare. The next eight years were thus spent mainly in high-growth health tech start-ups in emerging and frontier markets spanning across Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

Just prior to joining Praava, I was the co-founding CTO of one of South Asia’s largest health tech and insurtech startups, Telenor Health. With Telenor, I spent over 4 years based in Bangladesh. I also act as a Global Subject Manager Expert on Digital Health for KPMG, advising governments on digital health strategy and eHealth policy.

Typically I sit in London, but these days you can find me in Sri Lanka with my family.

My Journey to Praava

I had a slightly unusual pathway into the Praava team. Having spent 4 years on the ground in Dhaka with my two young kids, I saw firsthand the real challenges of a healthcare system facing difficulty in access and overprescription. After having several really poor experiences, a friend introduced me to Praava in 2019. As a patient, I was impressed by the patient-centric model of care and overall quality — not just with the doctors, but with every touch point I had with the business.

Joining the Team

After that first visit, I personally reached out to the Founder and CEO Sylvana Sinha to learn how I could help Praava grow so that others could access the same quality care my family experienced. I began advising Praava on technology strategy in 2019 before joining the team full time in August 2020.

My key driver for joining Praava was the opportunity to scale Praava’s unique model of care. Praava lives and breathes a true patient-centric model, which has the opportunity to scale both within Bangladesh and across emerging markets. If we seize this opportunity, we can improve the lives and healthcare outcomes of millions of people — impacting not just health, but unlocking economic opportunities, improving quality of life, and providing a pathway for greater equity.

I’m a huge advocate that healthcare should account for both “brick-and-click” sides of the model, integrating in-clinic experiences with digital products. Having worked in a pure digital (“click”) healthcare business, I observed 20–30% of all patients ultimately had to be referred to a physical clinic. Praava has a model that serves both sides, which is not just unique in Bangladesh but also serves as a model that can scale across borders.

What We’re Building

The technology and product team is responsible for three key areas:

1. We are focused on keeping our technology and patient / doctor-facing services up at our hub and physical facilities. This includes the maintenance of the technology that serves our state-of-the-art lab, pharmacy, and outpatient clinic.
2. We build and run a full technology stack that serves a full Hospital Information System. This again is architected to run our hub, but we are increasingly moving towards a strong digital layer making access to our services available country-wide.
3. The product team also sits across the entire business, ensuring that our current products are optimised based on real data and that a good patient experience is baked into every single product we launch.

We’re increasingly leveraging technology to serve our patients, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. While Praava has always intended to offer digital products, the pandemic accelerated the pace at which they were developed. We quickly rolled out telemedicine solutions so our patients could consult our doctors from the safety of their homes. Praava also brought Bangladesh its first ever patient app, launched in 2018. We’re now working on compiling all of our digital products into this app to create a Patient Superapp, which would serve as a one-stop-shop for all patients’ virtual and remote healthcare needs. Praava’s Hospital Information System also features an EMR (Electronic Medical Records) and is the first fully integrated platform that exists in Bangladesh. Additionally, we’ve piloted a remote COVID-19 symptom management tool called Praanno, which leverages AI/ML to direct patients through tailored care pathways. With Praanno, patients and their caretakers manage symptoms at home to avoid overburdening hospital systems and creating unnecessary exposure to healthcare workers.

My Praava Experience

We have a great team, culture, and patient focus, though for me, the best part of working at Praava is the opportunity we have to improve patient outcomes in Bangladesh and beyond. In the past year alone, we’ve more than doubled our patient base to 300,000 patients — and this is only the beginning. If we can replicate the experience my children and I experienced at Praava for millions of people across the country, we will change people’s lives whilst building one of the biggest healthcare companies in Asia.