Founded in 2017, Mumbai based DocMode is an e-platform dispensing authoritative, comprehensive and interactive learning programs for health professionals that comprises doctors, nurses, allied and medical students, across the world.

This year, DocMode announced collaborations with the Indian Dental Association, the International Council of Ophthalmology, and the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India, to take its initiatives further.

To find out more DocMode's plan in 2020, BioSpectrum interacted with Hans Albert Lewis, Founder & CEO, DocMode.

Edited Excerpts- 

What are the recent initiatives taken by DocMode in the online learning space in India?

We at DocMode are enablers for healthcare professionals, from Learning to Practice. Being a global platform for outcome based learning, it is vital for us to keep on launching new initiatives to improve learning experience of healthcare professionals. Here are some of the key initiatives we have taken.

• Being an e-Learning platform that provides authoritative, comprehensive and interactive learning programs, we have a focused approach to identify right partners. These partners help us to brainstorm, discuss and create courses for our learners which will help them in outcome based learning. We have been partnering with institutions and international universities for getting more courses onboard. Our recent partnerships have been with Cleveland Clinic, International Council of Ophthalmology, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, FOGSI, Indian Dental Association and many more.
• We recently launched our mobile app in beta version for a select group of learners. With this, learners can now access courses on the go. This was recently launched to select audiences and will be available to most audiences by Q2 of 2020. The current beta version has just courses and free live lectures available to audiences, more features will be added and tested in Q1 of 2020, then it will be ready for learners.
• We have also initiated focused group learning, so for a single course, we can have different learner groups. These groups can discuss among themselves and the educator can also guide them via online learning model. This helps learners in comparative analysis which is an integral part of medical learning. This also helps learning through research, leading to evidence based medicine.

What has been the progress so far for those initiatives?

We have seen great result with these initiatives.

• We have been able to launch multiple courses from these associations and medical institutes. These institutions are also helping us identify Indian KOLs for these courses to give it a local feel along with international faculty.
• We have received lot of learner feedback and they are extremely happy with the course content, MCQs and the faculty who were involved in delivering the course. Some of the learners have even got fellowships after completion of our courses, which again emphasize the great course content offered.
• It’s just two to three months since the launch of the beta version of our mobile app. We have received quite a lot of useful suggestions to select from. Our tech team is working to improve the UI/UX based on learner feedback, so it gives a seamless experience across different devices.
• The focus group learning and discussion has resulted into comparative studies in areas of clinical nutrition which have been published in journals. Though not all educators use this feature, but courses which are based on case study approach use focus group learning to enable research based approach.

Which are the key areas DocMode is offering courses in?

Currently we have courses in Ophthalmology, Cardiology, Diabetes and Clinical Nutrition. We will be adding more courses in these specialties and onboard more courses for Dental, Gynecology and Orthopedics.

How is technology transforming outcome-based learning for Medical Professionals in India?

As our tagline goes, “DocMode – From Learning to Practice”, we are a global platform for OUTCOME BASED LEARNING (OBL). We understand the need for constant learning among all individuals in healthcare which is a field that is evolving every single day.

Technology is an enabler to deliver outcome based learning, as it facilitates faculty members to discuss in focus group meetings for better outcome. Based on this expected outcome the course content is created by different faculty members and shared with the international university for review. Curriculum is designed by mind mapping the intended outcomes that learners should achieve by the end of the course. This entire process works on the backbone of technology involving multiple educators and industry KOLs. Further these e-Learning courses are self – paced, so learners can complete as per their free time. Learners also have access to these courses, so they can refer to the content multiple times which helps to better the learning experience. We also provide these mind maps to learners which help them to visually comprehend and structure their knowledge while they are going through the course.

Lastly, live lectures by these top KOL faculty helps learners to connect via discussion boards and get their queries resolved.   

What are the current challenges in this space of online learning?

Successful change or behavior change towards any new thing comes only in stages. One of the biggest challenges is acceptance by the NMC and state medical councils. Unless the associations open up towards allowing and accreditation of e-Learning portals, it would still pose as a bigger challenge for learners to join these courses. Already in the US, UK and Europe, doctors venture in e-Learning to update themselves with new developments and this is an accepted norm.

Another area is quality content, doctors as we know are very busy and the bigger the KOL, it becomes more difficult to get them onboard to conduct lectures for sharing knowledge. This has been one of the key reasons to include international faculty along with Indian faculty to create a course with a local flavor.

What are the major plans for 2020 in India?

Being a learner centric organization and a startup gives us the opportunity to be agile as we always offer courses based on learner demand. Here are our key plans for 2020:

1. Partnerships - Partnerships with associations and Ivy League medical colleges is core to our business. These partners help us to understand latest developments in industry, new areas of therapy, understand epidemic developments, treatments and rehabilitation. We plan to increase these partnerships not just with the US, UK and Indian based associations, but with others based in different continents and countries. Being a global company our content should be international but with a local flavor.
2. Content - Courses and Lectures: We plan to launch courses in new specialties and conduct live lectures on guidelines. We also plan to include case studies from south Asia, making our courses relevant for south Asian countries, as the demographic of patients don’t differ to a high extent.
3. Mentorship programs - We already have a partnership with Cleveland Clinic for Observership and Preceptorship in cardio sub – specialties. We are exploring more such programs with different hospitals and institutions. This acts as an extension to the courses for our learners.
4. Technology - Upscale technology stack for better learning and educator experience. It is important for us to offer deep insights about learners to the educators, as it helps them to offer better content or alter content as per learner expectation and lead learners for outcome based learning.
5. Learner initiatives - New initiatives towards peer – to – peer, student – mentor, learning and live lecture programs are being taken to make courses real time for learners.

Are you planning any collaboration with the government of India?

For the next few years, our plan is to focus and remain learner centric in the future offering value based learning.