Mobile Solutions
Doctor in your pocket launches in Ontario
May 18, 2016
TORONTO – Akira, a mobile platform that connects patients to family doctors on demand, has been launched to bring patients one-on-one consultations straight from their smartphone.
Available for download on Android and iOS, the app allows patients in Ontario to consult with board-certified physicians by secure mobile text or video, and provides users mobile access to personal health records including clinical notes, prescriptions and test results.
Akira is launching with $500,000 in seed funding from investors including Shopify founder Tobias Lütke, Top Hat founder, Mike Silagadze, and venture capital firm HIGHLINE.
“The way Canadians interact with their doctors hasn’t really changed for 100 years. Technology has revolutionized almost every other aspect of our lives except the healthcare system,” said Dustin Walper (pictured), co-founder, Akira.
“At Akira, we’re focused on bringing high-quality healthcare to people everywhere, and we’re leveraging technology to do it. We’re starting with the Akira app, but our ultimate goal is to build the world’s smartest artificial medical assistant.”
With the push of a button, Akira enables users to speak with an Ontario-based doctor immediately. Once logged in, users can begin a text conversation with the doctor, and based on the patient’s situation, doctors can immediately launch a video chat if necessary.
Users can start a chat with a doctor any time Monday-Friday between 9am – 5pm. Text messaging is ideal for a quick question or concern, and doctor response time is typically within two minutes.
Akira can be used to diagnose and treat many common health problems such as anxiety or depression, urinary tract infections (UTIs), rashes, and the flu.
Doctors can write prescriptions and send them to the user’s pharmacy of choice, refer patients to specialists or allied health professionals, and order tests.
Akira is partnered with PopRX for free, same-day delivery of prescription medications to the home or office. Prescription information including frequency and dosage is also easily accessible in-app.
The company was co-founded by Walper, who previously co-founded web and mobile development agency Myplanet, and Dr. Taha Bandukwala, a radiologist who recently completed residency at the University of Toronto.
“Akira’s mobile health platform is bringing much-needed change to a medical system still reliant on fax machines and paper charts,” said Dr. Bandukwala, chief medical officer, Akira.
“According to the American Medical Association, up to 70 percent of doctor’s visits could be conducted virtually, saving an unnecessary trip to the doctor’s office. Canadians are demanding better access to healthcare, and we built an interdisciplinary team of physicians, developers, data scientists and designers to bring transparency, accessibility, and user-friendliness to the patient experience.”
Akira is available through a monthly subscription service for $9.99/month, which provides unlimited access to the platform’s team of doctors and nurse practitioners, and can be cancelled at any time.
The service can also be provided by employers as an extended health benefit, and companies including Pivotal Labs, Top Hat, and 500px are currently offering Akira to their employees. During a closed beta test this spring, over 2,000 startup employees used Akira to book over 750 doctor consultations. If each consultation saved one hour of wait time at a clinic, Akira has already saved patients over 31 days of wait time.
When it comes to patient information, Akira follows the stringent privacy rules set out by the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA). All consultations are private, and patient data is encrypted and stored in Canada.
iPhone users can enable TouchID protection to prevent unauthorized access to their health records. Additionally, only patients and their doctor or medical staff can view patient data.
Akira should not be used for emergencies, and is not a replacement for the most responsible physician in cases of chronic disease, cancer or other complex care conditions. Akira is currently available in Ontario, but will be expanding to other provinces soon. The app is available for download on the App Store and Google Play Store.
Founded in 2015 by Dustin Walper and Dr. Taha Bandukwala, Akira provides healthcare services that work the way you do and on your schedule. Akira, a Japanese name meaning bright or intelligent, aims to change the way modern healthcare works by providing a much-needed mobile option to a system still reliant on fax machines and paper charts.
As a professional who works with family physicians I’d like to know how physician liability is handled and how is this service differs from Telehealth Ontario or the Telephone Health Advisory Service. I realize that a physician and nurse practitioner can prescribe medication where a Telehealth nurse can but given the lack of a physical examination I worry about the over prescription of antibiotics. Example – when is a sore ear an ear infection worthy of treatment. Children are already prescribed far too much antibiotics on this alone
Hilary,
Great questions! Telehealth Ontario is staffed by RNs who follow a very tight script – they are not able to provide a diagnosis, write a prescription, order tests, etc
In contrast, you can chat with an Akira doctor to do all of the above in most cases. We typically can deal with 75-80% of consults without referring to another family doctor or the ER.
Physician liability is the same as it would be in a clinic, with the CMPA providing coverage to doctors. The CPSO has published guidelines on telemedicine that our doctors are careful to follow:
http://www.cpso.on.ca/policies-publications/policy/telemedicine
As for overprescription of antibiotics, this is certainly something we take seriously. In the case of an ear infection (and please note: I am not a doctor), our doctors would probably be very hesitant to prescribe antibiotics without performing an examination – we don’t think this will be commonly done virtually until smartphone otoscope attachments become more widespread. For UTIs, it’s important to follow accepted guidelines which I believe don’t currently involve a physical exam for uncomplicated cases.
In any case, it always come down to the doctor to exercise discretion around appropriate use of antibiotics.
There are plenty of valid concerns about telemedicine, and these need to be addressed with rigorous guidelines and procedures, but there is also plenty of literature showing it to be as safe as in-person care for a wide variety of conditions – while also considerably increasing accessibility and massively improving convenience and transparency for patients.
-Dustin
Do we have to pay the doctors? How do the doctors get paid?
WOW – at last. My doctor won’t accept a phone message let alone an email and on top of that his office hours are sparse and not consistent. When I try to find another doctor I’m told since I’m already am on a roster I am not able to even join a waiting list.
Can I transfer my existing health records over to you?
@Ranie – Your first conversation with a doctor is free and it’s $9.99/month thereafter for unlimited use. Akira is currently not covered by OHIP, unfortunately. Our doctors maintain their own practice outside of Akira and spend 1-2 dedicated days per week working on Akira.
@Linda – We would always recommend that you do try to find a family doctor. It’s unfortunately a somewhat painful process to transfer – you need to notify your current doctor that you want to be de-rostered, they need to send a letter to OHIP, then a new doctor can roster you. In the interim, if you tell them that’s in progress they should be able to charge per-visit until that time.
With that said, you can always take photos of your records in Akira so you have them on-file with us. If you chat with a doctor on Akira, they can make some recommendations about which parts of the record would be useful to have and which are unnecessary. We also go through a rapid onboarding process when you first use the app to get the most important information the doctors will need.
I hope that’s helpful!
Sincerely,
Dustin
Isn’t this a violation of the Canada health act? Your practicing medicine (ie. Providing a diagnosis and treatment) yet not billing ohip and charging the patient or their employer. Sure it’s under the guise of a virtual visit but it’s still medicine.
@Craig No, this is very much permitted under the Canada Health Act.
Basically the Canada Health Act says this: anything that a province chooses to cover, and that is explicitly listed in the provincial “Schedule of Benefits”, cannot be offered privately. Anything not on the Schedule of Benefits can be offered privately.
That’s why some things, like most hospital visits, are free – there are billing codes in the Schedule of Benefits – whereas other things, like most prescription medications, psychology, cosmetic procedures, much of long-term care, certain lab tests, dentistry, optical, etc. you have to pay for out of pocket or through insurance.
In Ontario, “telemedicine” is not in the schedule of benefits, and therefore is not covered by OHIP. This was intentional – the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care knows that technology is an important part of the future of healthcare and didn’t want to prevent innovation from happening with short-sighted policy.
Technology has an important role to play in the future of healthcare, and that implies an important role for the private sector – in concert with smart policy – to deliver healthcare in new and more cost-effective ways.
I am having trouble seeing how you can make the economics of this work. Are you planning a price increase eventually or will there be fee for service or other limitations?
Assuming a very conservative $60.00 per hour for MD salary, that allows for 12 minutes of a doctor’s time for my $9.99 per month.
Is Akira basically subsidizing this service to get it started?
I’m concerned about one thing. I understand the telemedicine doctor can do refills for prescriptions, however, if one is a controlled substance but it needed to function everyday, how is that not able to be prescribed? I used to work for a doctors office that used telemedicine and the did any medication even if controlled substance.