Telemedicine: A Corporate Perspective

JEFFERY KHOURY is the CEO of Doctor Pocket, an iOS and Android app that connects users to a network of medical specialists from Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins and McGill. The app lets individuals select a specialist of their choice and meet in a virtual consult through an instant messaging platform. For a fee set by the specialist, users can get their medical questions answered without a time limit on the consultation. Named IBM Global Entrepreneur competition winner for 2017, Khoury launched the app last year while he was a first-year finance student at John Molson School of Business at Concordia University in Montreal.

BSTQ: Tell us about your inspiration for Doctor Pocket.

JK: The idea came to me when I was traveling abroad. I got sick multiple times and would visit a local doctor, and the experience was not what I was used to at all. I didn’t have comfort or the peace of mind that I would have whenever I left a doctor’s clinic back in Montreal. And, since half of my family is in the medical field, I would always message my cousin for medical advice. I would send him voice messages and pictures, and say: “Listen, this is what is wrong with me. I went to see the doctor and he gave me this and this. I’m still not feeling better. What should I do?” This was a recurring scenario, so I decided to analyze the telemedicine market to see whether there was any need for a service like Doctor Pocket. That’s when I found our major competitor and realized that they had a great idea but they had missed the mark on many things. For example, they didn’t treat their users as actual patients, and their users weren’t allowed to pick their doctor, features I feel are important for a telemedicine app. Doctor Pocket will allow anybody with a smartphone to choose a neurologist from Harvard and have a consult with no time limit. Instead of selling a service, our team is focused on providing a solution. Then, and only then, will they end the consultation.

BSTQ: How does the app work?

JK: Users log into the app, where they can view all of our doctors. They can then search doctors based on their specialty and their availability; you can also search based on location. After choosing a doctor, his or her profile opens to show the image of the doctor and the times he or she is available and a brief description. Ultimately, individuals have the convenience of picking whichever doctor they want, as well as a date and time of their choice. The app offers a global network of medical doctors to any user around the world. These doctors are specialists; there’s no other app out there that lets people go in and connect with any doctor on a global scale. We don’t want users to come, fill in a form and automatically be linked to a doctor and then be treated as just a number. We really want the user to feel confident using our service.

BSTQ: How can telemedicine benefit the tourist industry?

JK: Since it’s a global application, we’ve been targeting the tourist market, specifically people who are staying in hotels and become ill but don’t want to visit a local doctor in whatever region they are in. With the app, they can choose to connect with a doctor they are familiar with from their own city.

BSTQ: What’s next for telemedicine?

JK: The main issue of telemedicine is addressing the physical barrier between patient and doctor. Offering a telemedicine service where the doctoris talking to you from halfway across the world, but everything he or she would need to look at during the exam such as the analytics and vitals is available in real-time during the virtual consultation. Our goal is to integrate medical devices to capture heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, blood sugar, blood oxygen and customized integrated earphones to hear the heartbeat and lung functions. We are currently in the process of soliciting potential manufacturers forthe integration of all these metrics. That is where the future of telemedicine is headed.