7Med Story – The Start of a Partnership we Cherish
Today 10th December is our Foundation Day. The day 7Med India came into existence. I thought this would be the right moment to share the story which is behind a question many people have asked us.
The question is – “Why did we started a chain of Dialysis Clinics?”
There are few very obvious answers to it.
I and the co-founder Dr.Rakesh worked in Dialysis Industry at National positions in Fresenius Medical Care and were doing projects no one in Industry had done. Market research, Clinic Networking and much more. So we started our own chain of dialysis clinics. Another one – A Doctor and a project management guy with experience in same industry and wanting to start their own venture teamed up and rest is history. Yet another one can be – There is a huge gap in demand and supply and thus the opportunity called us and we jumped to do fill the gap.
Yes all the above form part of the story as well but was it enough. I think these all put together were not compelling enough to leave a senior management position in worlds largest Dialysis Care Company to start from scratch. Moreover all these analysis and reasons came to light later. The most compelling reason to start 7Med came with our own quest. While in Fresenius we were looking to find “THE ONE FACTOR” which can improve the patient health and dialysis outcomes dramatically?
The question was critical and the audience was divided. There came many options and opinions from internal team, Doctors, Technicians and more. There were obvious answers that came to the surface initially like water quality, access management, diet monitoring, strict liquid intake management, increased frequency of dialysis and many more. We did a detailed study of the dialysis procedure, discussion with nephrologists, practicing physicians, dialysis clinicians a large list of such factors were prepared. Procedure to narrow down the big list began and it indeed was tough to strike off many of the factors. Assigning one factor the maximum weight was a hard decision. The list was further narrowed down to 5 key factors. But something didn’t seem right. Logically we should be excited to have come to 5 major factors but we weren’t. As they say till the time you are satisfied you should keep working.
Then came the Moment of enlightenment, from a person we expected the least. While on our field visit we were talking to dialysis patients and were asking the same question. Few smiled and shrugged off without any response, few said it’s water, few believed it’s the dialysis technician among others. The discussion were interesting but weren’t leading to any clue when suddenly a patient said, “Its Me”. And to our surprise we felt its right. It’s the patient. While doing the entire exercise we realized that just like everybody we too had missed the obvious answer. Missed it because it was so obvious I think. As the proverb goes, “Solutions to biggest of problems lie nearby, they are just tough to see because of their simplicity”.
Indeed patients are the most significant factors who can contribute and change their own life on dialysis. Thus came the idea of a model dialysis clinic, which would focus on making patient in charge, giving them more knowledge and keeping them at center each and everything done in the clinic.
We had found a reason compelling enough to take the plunge. That’s the partnership, the partnership of a dialysis clinic and patients, it serves. The partnership which we named 7Med Kidney Care Centers. A partnership between renal failure patients and 7Med India Team.
Today after completing 3 years since we started 7Med and after 2 years of establishing our first clinic we know we have done good things on the way, but the fact remains that there is still a lot tobe done. And we are committed to make the journey together with our patient partners a healthy & memorable one.
Beginning of a New Partnership
Yes we are indeed talking about a Beginning. Beginning of a New Partnership.
What partnership ??
A story needs to be told to bring the right answer at the surface.
Healthcare innovation and research are areas which bring shine into the eyes of founders of 7Med India. While working with best of the renal care companies, helping various hospitals and renal clinic chains to set up their clinics & operations they stumbled upon a question. What is the most important factor that can dramatically improve life of patients on dialysis?
A team was set up and exploration began to find out the answer. Hardly ever we had thought that the answer would be so simple and yet a challenging task to achieve. There were obvious answers that came to the surface initially like water quality, access management, diet monitoring, strict liquid intake management, increased frequency of dialysis and many more. We did a detailed study of the dialysis procedure, discussion with nephrologists, practicing physicians, dialysis clinicians a large list of such factors were prepared. Procedure to narrow down the big list began and it indeed was tough to strike off many of the factors. Assigning one factor the maximum weight was a hard decision. The list was further narrowed down to 5 key factors. But something didn’t seem right. Logically we should be excited to have come to 5 major factors but we weren’t.
Then we talked to the patients on dialysis. Few smiled and shrugged off without any response, few said it’s water, few believed it’s the dialysis technician among others. The discussion were interesting but weren’t leading to any clue when suddenly a patient said its me. And to our surprise we felt its right. It’s the patient. While doing the entire exercise we realized that everybody had missed the obvious answer. Missed because it was so obvious. As the proverb goes, “Solutions to biggest of problems lie nearby, they are just tough to see because of their simplicity”.
Indeed patients are the most significant factors who can contribute and change their own life on dialysis. Thus came the idea of dialysis clinics which would focus on making patient in charge, giving them more knowledge and keeping them at center in whatever is done in the clinic. That’s the partnership, the partnership of a dialysis clinic and patients, it serves. The partnership which we named 7Med Kidney Care Centers. That’s what we believe is a partnership. A partnership between renal failure patients and 7Med India Team.