Accel-backed Portea Medical to provide ICU services at home

Home healthcare services provider Portea Medical has expanded its services and forayed into specialised and critical home care. The suite of services also includes end of life care for terminally ill patients.

Since the critical care market is pegged at $500 million, the company backed by investors such as Accel, Qualcomm Ventures, and Sabre Partners, would be further extending the services to chemotherapy-from-home and dialysis-from-home in the near future.

“Many patients who are in intensive care do not require active intervention. All that needs to be done is to keep them stable and monitor them. In such a scenario, for them to stay in the ICU is not helpful either to the patient, his family or the hospital. So it makes enormous sense that patients can come home and recover,” said Meena Ganesh, MD and CEO, Portea Medical.

The cost of treatment for the patient will come down between a third and a fifth through critical home care services, the company said. For example if specialised care in a hospital ICU costs anywhere between Rs 30,000 to Rs 50,000 per day, the same services offered at home will cost between Rs 6,500 to Rs 12,000 per day.

Apart from the financial benefits, the service ensures that hospital borne infections are minimised, along with better sleep, open visiting hours, and easier access to personal belongings, said Ganesh.

The Bengaluru-based startup would set up and entire ICU capability including monitoring devices, specialised beds, medical equipment, ventilators, with a full-time nurse stationed in the house. All of this will be supervised by doctors for further actions. Portea will also be collecting data from all the medical equipment which will hosted on the cloud to keep a track on the patient’s health remotely.

The healthcare major which has been working with about 60 hospitals will be collaborating with almost all the partners for critical care services in cities such as Bengaluru, Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai.

“The time is upon us when hospitals will only be a place for diagnosis, surgeries, and more acute care. With services like ours, chronic disease management can be undertaken at home efficiently and would lead to better clinical outcomes, cost-effective treatment, and improved quality of life,” said Vishal Sehgal, Country Head, Portea Intensive & Specialty Homecare.