Doctors in Your Smartphone
Dr. Sara Saeed Khurram and Dr. Iffat Zafar Aga are the co-founders of Sehat Kahani, a Pakistan-based technology enterprise that connects trained women doctors—many of whom work from home—with patients in clinics across the country through video consultations. Over time, Sehat Kahani has also become a key provider of telemedicine services, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, expanding access to healthcare for communities with limited medical resources.
Sehat Kahani was created to address a critical gap in Pakistan’s healthcare system. While women make up nearly 70% of medical graduates, around 30% fail to transition into active practice due to societal expectations or family responsibilities. This left a large, untapped pool of trained female doctors and a population of patients with limited access to quality care. The platform bridges this gap by reconnecting trained women doctors with patients through video consultations, ensuring medical expertise reaches communities that need it most.
The company’s early model focused on nurse-run e-health clinics in small towns and low-income communities. Nurses were trained in medical and pharmaceutical protocols, patient communication, and basic clinical examinations. They collected patient histories, entered data into the system, and connected patients with doctors online. However, early adoption was slow, prompting the founders to reassess the model.
Over time, Sehat Kahani identified four essential factors for building trust and demand: a locally trusted nurse to champion the service, female community educators to engage residents, consistent quality of care, and pricing that reduced the overall financial burden on patients. By accounting for travel costs, lost wages, food expenses, and consultation fees, Sehat Kahani offered care at a fraction of traditional healthcare costs, making the service both accessible and sustainable.
As the model matured, the founders recognized that clinics staffed by only a few doctors could not create a mass-level impact. “A huge population in our country doesn’t get healthcare, and in Pakistan, healthcare is not democratic,” Dr. Khurram noted. This realization drove a strategic shift from brick-and-mortar clinics to a scalable digital model.
Studying global telemedicine trends, Sehat Kahani transitioned to a mobile-first platform, capitalizing on Pakistan’s rapidly growing smartphone user base. The app was intentionally designed to be simple, intuitive, and usable for people of all ages, allowing patients to connect with doctors remotely. The technology was developed in partnership with a leading Pakistani tech firm, ensuring reliability and scale.
At the core of the platform is a rigorously vetted medical network. All doctors must hold valid PMDC licenses, have at least five years of clinical experience, and must not have been out of practice for more than three years. Continuous training is provided through webinars, continuing medical education (CME) programs, and a learning management system (LMS) covering common diseases in Pakistan, symptom recognition, treatment protocols, and doctor–patient interaction. Both doctors and nurses undergo exam-based assessments to ensure quality and consistency of care.
Beyond individual patients, Sehat Kahani expanded into corporate healthcare, offering outpatient teleconsultation services that are typically excluded from insurance coverage in Pakistan. Through B2B and B2B2C models, the platform integrates into corporate and banking applications, extending healthcare access to employees and customers.
The COVID-19 pandemic marked a major turning point. Partnering with the federal government, Sehat Kahani provided online consultations during nationwide lockdowns. Doctors were trained under national guidelines to manage mild and moderate COVID-19 cases remotely, while severe cases were referred to designated hospitals. At the peak of lockdowns, the platform was seeing up to 900,000 patients per day across multiple medical conditions.
Within approximately three months, the app recorded around 120,000 downloads and facilitated nearly 85,000 consultations. Between 3% and 6% of these consultations took place outside Pakistan, including from India, Australia, Bangladesh, the UK, the US, and the Philippines, reflecting growing trust in telemedicine during the crisis.
Looking ahead, the founders envision Sehat Kahani as a global leader in telemedicine, focusing on striking a balance between patient impact, revenue, and long-term sustainability. Expansion plans include markets where healthcare access remains limited, such as Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, through localized platforms, local-language adaptations, regional payment gateways, telecom partnerships, and the local onboarding of doctors.
How do you think telemedicine platforms like Sehat Kahani can reshape healthcare access for underserved communities in Pakistan and beyond? Let us know in the comments!
This article was developed with the assistance of AI tools.
