Building the best blood test experience in the country 🇮🇳
Dhruv is the co-Founder of Orange Health Labs. He has built a fantastic business, pioneering a high quality testing service in a traditionally low-NPS, fragmented industry. Orange is on the frontier of testing in India and serves nearly 5L patients per year across the top 4 metros of India. In our conversation Dhruv explains their formula for success and the pain points Orange Health is addressing for customers that has allowed them to thrive.
Fixing a broken experience
AS: “For a person buying a diagnostic or a blood test, what is the experience like? What problems do they face in the process?”
Dhruv: “There are several problems. First it takes a lot of effort. You spend time in traffic, then waiting in the line at the collection center. If you are already sick, then you are potentially exposed to further infection. Or you Whatsapp someone for home collection. Very rarely do they show up on time. Then that phlebotomist visits a dozen homes before bringing the samples back to the lab, so the samples are not stored properly. This makes the results less accurate. Then, of course, the report processing time is long and highly variable. We heard many patients complain about getting delayed reports and knew this was a problem to solve.
So that’s what we built: Book and within 60 minutes we’re at your home for collection, we have the shortest time from vein-to-machine, reports within 6 hours, and absolute reliability.”
Creating customer delight
AS: “How does decreasing the time to delivery impact the customer experience? How much does speed matter?”
Dhruv: “In healthcare, we show care to our loved ones by being responsive, action oriented and by providing quality care. Orange Health Labs does the same for its customers.
Think about the healthcare experience in full: When you’re unwell, you can talk to a doctor within 10 minutes, any time of the day. When the doctor suggests medicines, they can reach your home in 30 minutes from the neighborhood pharmacy. But when your doctor prescribes tests to you, there is no one coming now, or in the next couple of hours. Maybe tomorrow morning, unless you want to drive to the nearby collection center with your sick relative. In a world where everything is available on demand, it seems broken that we can't get tested sooner!”
Dhruv believes speed of delivery cannot be compromised. That’s why Orange closely measures TATs on:
Time from order to collection which alleviates the patient's anxiety around their condition.
Speed of reverse logistics (taking the sample back to our lab) ensuring a high quality sample.
Time to report, ensuring the doctor can treat their patient faster, and as a result, get better health outcomes.
Starting the preventive care journey
AS: “Data is the starting point for preventive care and testing is a key component to collecting that data. How do you incentivize people to get blood tests more regularly?”
Dhruv: “That’s right, diagnostics is the starting point for data generation in healthcare, and upstream of all treatment. As we make the experience even more seamless, deeply integrated with your healthcare provider, and help people get deeper insights into their health risks, it will help people be more proactive about their testing and healthcare needs. With enough longitudinal data, consumers and doctors can also spot trends in their health and make better decisions.”
AS: “How do you personalize tests for people and their specific health needs?”
Dhruv: “We recognize that each person is unique. Our lifestyle choices and family’s genetic history have a large impact on our health risks. As a result, picking standard health checkups may not be ideal to truly manage your health risk.
As a result, we’ve recently launched a new product called Personalized Health Checkups, that enables customers to answer a few questions about their lifestyle and history, and our algorithm will design a personalized health checkup with a mix of advanced tests that the patient needs in order to manage their health better.”
This is a first of its kind product in the diagnostic space in India, and maybe globally. For the first time, a patient can input data on their health and get recommended which tests truly to take. Click here to see the product in action.
AS: “How do you make the results actionable, and drive better health outcomes?”
Dhruv: “The most important thing is making sure the results are interpreted quickly and correctly. Orange Health Labs sends your reports directly to your doctor, so they can guide you best for better health outcomes.”
AS: “What else matters to the customer that you’ve been able to differentiate on? How does this drive better health outcomes and increased longevity?”
Dhruv: “In our user research we found that anxiety around the collection and waiting for the test results significantly degrades the healthcare service experience. Besides speed and reliability, we focus on ensuring highly empathic communication through all our touch points, emanating care to the patient. This alleviates the patients and their family's anxiety. All of this combined has been a key factor in Orange Health Labs becoming India's highest rated diagnostic lab, or may I say, India's most loved diagnostic lab, in just 3 years since launch.”
It’s true. Orange Health commands a slight premium over other local diagnostic providers. Their customer NPS scores tops the market. And they continue to expand their services to new geographies each year.
In what has historically been a commoditized, race-to-the-bottom service, Orange has changed how customers experience testing and increased their willingness to pay. It’s deeply exciting that Orange exists and will continue to launch innovative products in the space making tests personalized and more actionable.