Why we invested in Hexa Health: Augmenting surgeries with pre and post hospitalisation care

Over the last few years, we have witnessed a first wave of innovation from digital health delivery companies, including some of our portfolio companies TATA 1mg, myUpchar, and Healofy, that identified challenges in the existing healthcare system and built solutions to enhance the quality of care to patients, mostly outside the existing system.

Further, the pandemic has overwhelmed health systems and changed patient behaviours and expectations. It has spurred the need for radical changes within the Indian healthcare system, especially as technology proliferation has remained low. We think the inflection point for digital health in India is here and now.

At Omidyar Network India, we are firm believers in the transformative potential of digital health solutions that significantly improve patient outcomes, while increasing reach and democratising access to healthcare by making it affordable.

One such segment ripe for innovation is in-patient care. It contributes to 60% i.e. $80B (across private providers alone) of the overall $130B expenditure on health care today. Despite its size and criticality, this industry continues to be characterized by a high patient trust deficit, especially amongst the Next Half Billion. This trust gap is driven by a few key reasons:

• A dearth of reliable advice leading to significant information asymmetry.
• Difficulty in assessing quality of care, limited transparency in decision making and the constant risk of misdiagnosis.
• The high costs of care combined with lack of clarity on pricing, the threat of price gouging as well as inadequate financial support.

As a result, relationships with providers remain transactional and episodic, with no mechanism for objective guidance before opting for surgery. Similarly, infrastructure for post-operative care, critical to track surgical outcomes and reduce the risk of re-admissions, remains absent.

Hexa Health has taken on the ambitious task of becoming the most trusted platform to digitise surgery-related decision-making and extending the reach of quality and affordable hospitalisation care to millions of Indians. In the process, it is also solving challenges in financing surgeries as well as insurance.

Through its platform, Hexa aims to offer a full range of pre-and post-surgery services with a three-fold value proposition to patients:

• Personalized curation of surgical information and hospitals based on medical history, specific needs and preferences.
• Increased transparency for better decision making and higher affordability via competitive rates negotiated with a select network of high-quality providers.
• Improved care through seamless pre-operative and post-operative consultations, along with increased convenience in billing, financing and discharge.

While there are other online portals offering lead generation services for hospitals, financing for surgical care, and "˜private-label' operations, we believe Hexa's marketplace offering that integrates all of the above along with their patient-centric approach is their key differentiator.

In the process, Hexa will help drive substantial value for the other key stakeholders as well - providers, surgeons, and insurers. Providers and surgeons stand to benefit from higher capacity utilization and improved patient satisfaction. Insurers should benefit from lower treatment costs, increased customer "˜success', thereby fuelling acquisition and access to data on an ongoing basis.

We are thrilled to partner with the stellar founding team comprising Ankur Gigras, Vikas Chauhan, and Dr. Aman Priya Khanna. Having had the privilege to partner with Ankur and Vikas through their previous roles at TATA 1mg, we are impressed by their patient-first thinking, operational excellence, and understanding of the industry. That, combined with Dr. Aman's rich surgical experience, can enable Hexa to establish science-based protocols that enable them to set industry-defining standards and deliver the highest quality of care for their patients.

We are excitedly looking forward to the patient-centricity that Hexa Health is able to bring to in-patient care in India.