Doctor Nguyen Van Dong from the Emergency Department of the Da Nang Hospital and his friends have developed a meaningful project, named ‘Homecares’, which connects doctors with their patients who want to have medical examinations and treatment in their own homes.  The connection is available via telephones, the project’s website and its mobile application. 

Representatives from ‘Homecares’ receiving the prize from the ADB

The project aims to help patients gain easier access to high-quality services at displayed prices, and allow doctors to increase their incomes. 

Doctor Dong said that this product was initially inspired by his harsh experiences in examining his patients.  He explained that many local public hospitals usually face patient overload and, therefore, doctors find it very hard to handle a large number of out-patients.  Meanwhile, many patients, especially the elderly and children, also feel very exhausted and tired of waiting for their turn for examinations there. 

In an attempt to deal with this matter, the strong-willed doctor and an IT male graduate from the city-based Duy Tan University jointly opened a website for the project at http://homecares.vn/ on a trial basis. 

In addition, ‘Homecares’ is easily accessed through the use of a mobile app on smartphones, operated by either IOS or Android systems.  Thanks to this app, users can access updated information on healthcare services, send their health-related questions to the project’s doctors for useful advice, and set up their own electronic medical records by themselves.  In particular, users can book appointments in their own homes with the project’s doctors for examinations, treatments of chronic diseases, medical tests and physical therapies.

In June, ‘Homecares’ officially made its public debut by offering free in-house examinations for 5 local people, and it received high praise from them.

Currently, 10 doctors and 6 nurses from the city’s General Hospital and the Maternity and Paediatrics Hospital are working part-time for this meaningful project.

The ‘Homecares’ project won the first prize at the Start-up Weekend 2016 contest which was held in late last year with the intention of providing contestants with basic knowledge about start-up business activities in order to help them develop their own businesses.  Thanks to this positive result, the project is eligible for participating in a pre-incubation programme which was developed by the Da Nang Innovation Hub (DINHUB) under the direct management of the municipal Union of the Science and Technology Associations.

Most notably, ‘Homecares’ won a prize from the Mekong Business Initiative (MBI) of the Asia Development Bank (ADB) at the SURF Pitching Competition 2017 which was part of the recent Da Nang International Start-up Conference and Exhibition 2017.  Accordingly, the prize features one MBI- sponsored trip to an international start-up event.  Hopefully, this prestigious prize will help to facilitate the project’s developers to perfect their product, appeal for more investment capital, and attract more medical workers from hospitals and clinics to join in the project. 

Ms Nguyen Thi Van Anh, the co-founder of the project, remarked that the IT application in the healthcare sector will bring more benefits and convenience to both medical workers and patients.