Mom's ailment drove this CA to build a biz in post-hospitalisation care

Rajinish Menon's enterprise Sukino Health care specialises in offering rehab and recuperation to chronically ill patients at a much lower cost than hospitals

He isn't the quintessential techie, but a chartered accountant who understands technology and the health care business quite well.

Rajinish Menon, in fact, is an old hand at enterprise, having started his first company, Grecell, back in 1993, offering ERP solutions for hospitals in Kochi along with his brother. He was only a commerce graduate then.

While Menon's firm was quite successful, he also wanted to study more and was encouraged by his family to pursue chartered accountancy, since he had a head for numbers. 

Menon cracked CA at first shot along with the Certified Treasury Management course, before taking up a job at Reliance Energy as finance accounting manager, when it was still part an RIL company. He later took on key positions at Deutsche Bank in Singapore and then at Microsoft, before the entrepreneurial bug bit again in 2015.

How it all started

What really triggered his decision to start a new business was the health condition of his mother, Susheela Menon, who was facing multiple issues all at once and needed immediate medical attention.

"That's when I realised that the health care system in the country was fragmented especially for those with chronic ailments, where the caregiver--such as me in the case of my mother--would always have to be with her," explains Menon, who chucked up an opportunity at Microsoft corporate office to look after her.

He says the caregiver is stressed out not only because he needs to be around, but also because he has often to take critical decisions he may be may not be qualified or equipped to take. 

"Worse, when the patient has multiple issues affecting a number of organs, you don't usually get a holistic solution to the underlying health problem," says Menon, as he explains that a cardiologist will only focus on the heart, the nephrologist on the kidney and the neurologist on the central nervous system.

"We needed to get back to the traditional system of the family doctor," says Menon.

Secondly, after a surgery there were gaps in the rehabilitation and recuperation functions. "The recovery path has two key elements--recuperation and rehabilitation, both going hand in hand, with dedicated teams for each. Add to that the need for palliation --provision of a more comfortable life at twilight stage," says Menon. 

Menon says spotted a opportunity to create a market, and educate people on rehab, recuperation and palliative care. He and his wife divined the name Sukino from a Sanskrit shloka on health. 

Business model

Menon sees Sukino as one of the angles in a triangle, the other two being the patient and the hospital. If a patient requires a human resource, at the lowest level the enterprise can provide such a person, who wouldn't just be a normal caregiver would be clued in on to patient's condition, while the entire medical history of the patient is simultaneously available on the Sukino CRM. 

"So if your father is not well, has so-and-so problem, immediately my CRM will give me his history (if he is an existing patient), allowing me to talk the language of continuity with the caregiver," Says Menon.

If someone has been admitted in a hospital, Sukino takes care of all his needs there by (a) offering a human resource to look after him as care taker (b) talking to the doctor to understand the patient's situation better (c) deciphering the information given by doctor and understanding the prognosis (d) offer rehab and recuperation at a Sukino centre for as many days he wants and then shift him back home.

"In case of a relapse I can get the patient back to my centre if the issue is simple, or get to the hospital, and then back home from either place. This is what I call continuum of care."

Menon says Sukino is far cheaper than a hospital for R&R. For instance, in surgery cases, the patient needn't stay in hospital too long and can get the R&R at a Sukino centre. Since Sukino is totally clued into patient history, the staff would know the patients entire needs.

The institute, which has been approved by the medical authorities in Karnataka and Kerala, 450 people working directly or indirectly with it. It enrols 180-190 patients a month and has catered to about 5,300 patients since inception in 2015.

The company does not rely on formal tie-ups with hospitals and leans on its goodwill with doctors and its track record with patients to build its business

Managing Covid-19

Menon says Sukino caters only to post-Covid patients who have tested negative, as he would not want his current stock of patients who have other ailments to get infected. Sukino has a team of respiratory and cardioplumonary therapists, physiotherapists and occupational therapists among others, to help post-Covid patients improve their lung power, cognitive ability and other clinical and physiological ailments.

The road ahead

Sukino has had a pre-Series A round of funding worth $1.5 million led by former Infosys co-chairman Kris Gopalakrishnan, who currently heads Axilor Ventures, which supports and funds startups, and former Infosys director T V Mohandas Pai, now Chairman of Manipal Global Education (Manipal University). 

The first major expansion for Sukino began in in 2018, at the end of which the company had five centres--four in Bengaluru, one in Kochi--with 180 beds in all. The plan is to ramp this up by another 200 this fiscal, and 250 next fiscal. "Bengaluru alone will have 500 beds in about 15 months. We are also targeting Chennai, Vijaywada, Hyderabad, and another city on Kerala," says Menon. "Going forward, we Will go for the debt route as we have a strong balance sheet." He says the company's current turnover is about $2 million and the aim is to ramp it up to $4 million by 2022

Says Gopalakrishnan: Private hospitals need to get more involved in primary care. This in turn led me to invest in India’s first continuum care provider, Sukino Healthcare. Sukino offers complete out-of-hospital recuperative, rehabilitative, and palliative care to all patients at any transitory stage of their illness for a speedy recovery. Be it long-term management for chronic illnesses or post-acute illness recuperation. The care is provided either at the continuum of care facilities or at the home of patients.