Oncopadi vs Helium Health: The Similarities and Differences Between Both Health Service Providers

Oncopadi is an app used to digitize treatment rendered to cancer patients. Helium health is a health tech company that has launched a number of software products for both patients and hospitals.

This comparison does not take Helium Health as a healthcare service provider, but rather as a tech company that gives healthcare providers a comprehensive suite of technology solutions. These solutions are dedicated to managing every aspect of healthcare delivery, from electronic medical records and telemedicine, to administration and financial management.

Here are the similarities and differences in the services rendered by Helium Health and Oncopadi.

Hospital Requirement

Helium Health’s latest software service is a patient portal that allows people to sign up and access their health records. The patient can see summaries of hospital visits, check lab results, and schedule appointments with the hospital on the MyHelium app.

Oncopadi, on the other hand, also gives medical practitioners a digital platform to attend to their patients online. Doctors and other specialists can book ahead for a digital session with patients using the app’s enterprise option. This is different from Helium Health’s model which registers hospitals and then has patient records digitized.

In essence, Helium Health restructures the bookkeeping aspects of a hospital and makes it available online to hospitals that register with the healthtech company.

On Oncopadi, the digitized platform is available each time the booking process is done by the practitioner or patient.

Free access to medical advice

Anyone with a medical need can join Oncopadi’s chat room and get answers or referrals from the team of medical volunteers that man the chat flow. Helium Health does not have a live chat for people who just want to share medical concerns and get medical advice. The live chat is free.

Flexibility for individuals

On Oncopadi, people can schedule appointments with specialists and pay for a telemedical consultation session. The app provides three distinct medical plans for people: the free plan; the Audio/Video plan; and the Premium plan.

The free plan is the live chat. The Audio/Video plan allows people to book a teleconsultation with a doctor at a cost of #3,500. There is no requirement to be registered with a particular hospital before anyone uses the plan. The premium plan gives a similar service with advanced benefits like extended follow-up hours, 1-hour sessions, and laboratory test bookings.

Helium Health gives patients the flexibility of scheduling appointments with medical officers as well. But the person has to be registered with a hospital that uses its services. From the hospital records, people will be able to access and operate the MyHelium services with the phone number registered with the hospital.

Specialist care

Oncopadi’s primary focus is on cancer patients. The web app has a health shop where patients can purchase drugs, book lab tests and consult with specialists. However, there are also specialists for other fields such as Mental Health, Child Health, Ante-natal care, Optical Care, and Women’s Health also available on the platform.

Information from Helium Health’s website shows that about 5,000 professionals use the platform to manage 165,000 patients across hospitals. The company just raised a funding of $7 million which will bring its services to more hospitals in Africa.

Oncopadi is making plans for its first funding round from investors which will be used to scale the enterprise service largely.

Although currently offering healthtech services with modifications here and there, the trajectory of both companies will likely cross in the bid to build a better structure for healthcare in Africa.