Business Software Model: Enhancing Therapist-Patient Consultation

This report proposes a novel software business model designed to bridge the gap between physical therapists, osteopaths, and patients. It addresses the issue of potential customers lost due to various factors, including high consultation costs and uncertainty. The software offers features like posture analysis, urgent video sessions, and follow-up consultations, targeting various customer segments, including patients, therapists, and sports professionals. The value proposition centers on cost savings, increased client acquisition for therapists, and accelerated healing. The business model leverages a mobile and desktop app with AI integration, offering features like posture analysis and web chat sessions. The report includes a business model canvas, discusses the integration of artificial intelligence and augmented reality, and provides a financial analysis demonstrating a high return on investment over five years. The report also covers value proposition development and delivery using the value proposition canvas.

Table of contents
Executive Summary…………………………………….……………………………………….2
Problem insight…………………………………….……………………………………...……..2
Portfolio of generated solution ideas…………………………………….……………...………3
Solution selection analysis…………………………………….…………………………………3
Targeted customers…………………………………….…………………………………..…….4
Value proposition Benefit…………………………………….…………………………………5
Business model description…………………………………….………………………..………8
Value proposition development and delivery………………………………………….……..10
Financial value capture …………………………………….…………………………………12
Conclusion…………………………………….………………………………..……………….12
References…………………………………….…………………………………….…………13

Executive Summary
All around the world, about 3/4th of the potential customers are lost by PTs and Osteopaths. The
reason being either non-availability of therapists to immediate attention seeking issues, high
price of simple consultation sessions or the uncertainty of the patients to contact therapists since
there are not too sure about the severity of the issue. This gap between physical therapists and
potential patients leads to two kinds of problems- one being loss of potential client for the
therapists and the other being patients not receiving good medical care leading to worsening of
their condition. Using the same shortcoming from the therapist- patient operation, we aim to
develop business software that fills this gap and accelerates the process of consultation between
therapists and patients. This business model is cost effective and ensures more than 1200%
return on investment over a period of 5 years.
Problem insight
In a study published in China, 75% of the interviewed population expressed their need for
rehabilitation services, out of which only 27% had actually received such services. This shows
that 3/4th of the potential customers are lost by PTs and Osteopaths and only 1/4th actually receive
treatment. Many a times, the patients hesitate to connect with a therapist thinking they have a
normal back ache or little bit discomfort, which later escalates into serious diseases. It so
happens that they spend too much on consultation previously to actually go for one when really
needed.

Portfolio of generated solution ideas
We plan to introduce novice software that would shorten the gap between osteopaths, physical
therapists and massage therapists. This will create windows of opportunities for cost saving for
patients and new client acquisition for therapists. This will also accelerate the healing process
and many patients who are uncertain about visiting doctors will have access to tentative
consultation and if needed, can visit actual therapist (Christensen, Hall, Dillon & Duncan, 2016).
The generated solution ideas are as follows-
• We plan to introduce a novice software that would shorten the gap between osteopaths,
physical therapists, massage therapists. This software would have tools which will serve
both therapists and the customers.
• Create windows of opportunities for cost saving for patients and new client acquisition
for therapists. While most of the patients can avail therapist’s consultation for very
minimal costs, the therapists can save time on their full time consultation and easily
depend on online generated reports.
• Accelerate the healing process by connecting the therapists and the clients easily, so that
the cases of pain being neglected and then later on worsening and adding to the medical
bill could decrease.
Solution selection analysis

A number of solutions were designed for this stated problem which are meant to be delivered
through means of a software which will be available as desktop app. Deliverables of the software
are stated as follows-
– Posture analysis tool for analyzing the posture of the patients, which deems to be
the most common cause of mechanical injury and most of the low back and
cervical pains. This will also help the therapist to first determine the shortcomings
from the posture analysis tool’s generated report and only after appropriate
– Urgent sessions with therapists can be arranged via video sessions for cases where
patient might require advice on serious issues before actually going to a therapist
nearby.
– Query resolution sessions can be arranged as follow up sessions with the
therapists after they provide manual therapy sessions to the client. Usually, the
client needs to go to additional sessions and pay the fees in full for a new session
if they need additional advice on their previous session. IF this model is followed,
the clients can connect with their therapists through this app and save their time,
money and efforts.
– Designing patient specific tool is on top priority for this app solution because as
we will see in later sections, the non- acquisition of mhealth app users is mainly
credited to non specific solutions being delivered to the users and just cluttering
their desktop or mobile space (Vancampfort, 2019)..

Targeted customers
The following are the target customers and user base of this app-
• Physical therapists
• Occupational therapists
• Massage therapists
• Osteopaths
• Patients
• Children with special needs
• Post operative patients
• Sports physiotherapists
• Sports personals
• Athletes
• Sports massage therapists
• Occupational therapists
Value proposition Benefit
As per a 2018 study (“The Rise of mHealth Apps: A Market Snapshot”, 2018) only 7% mHealth
apps acquire more than 50,000 active users per month
• Average acquisition was pegged at 1000 active users monthly

• The main causes for this low acquisition are that there are no client specific solutions
available in the mhealth app for the user base. Either the client or the therapists suffer
because of such incomplete usability of the
This figure depicts that around 46% of mhealth apps have only 500 active monthly users. And
only 7 percent ever reach the benchmark of more than 50K users per month.
Going by the worst case scenario, the app would still have 1000 active monthly users. Assuming
that users would only avail online consultation, benefits for therapists would be still high, cost
cutting higher for users and app ROI high for the investors. Key costs involved for all the
stakeholders are shown in upcoming slides.

Physiotherapy Consultation Costs Can be rolled into benefit costs if the therapists acquire new
patients through app. This cost can be included in cost cutting if patients need not require
therapists for these sessions. That means, they get their queries resolved via online sessions at
much lower costs rather than actually going to the sessions and wasting whole chunk of money.
The online session may also lead to a conclusion where they would not need any assistance and
the problem would not need any medical care. Reversely, if the patients feel like actually
connecting with a therapist after the consultation session, they might prefer connecting with the
same therapist with whom they shared the consultation session with, given that their location is
same. Sometimes, the location of the therapist doesn’t even matter if the patient likes the

consultation and is convinced by the skills of the doctor (PayScale, 2019) (Viva Physiotherapy,
2019).
These physiotherapy consultation costs can be used as a benchmark to decide how much
monetary benefits can be reaped by both therapists and patients. If a therapist acquires new
patient, then the annual subscription fee will be paid in just one single visit and if a patient can
prevent one wrong visit, they can save around 100 dollars as well. So this again shows that
monetary benefits will be inflicted both upon the therapists and the client. The investors would
benefit from the annual subscription fees and the cost of advertisement which can be made
through the app.
Osteopathy consultation Costs- The initial one time consultation alone is 80 dollars on an
average. So our annual subscription fee would most likely attract many users because of low
costs. there are no subsequent follow up discounts. All charges are paid in full and often times,
patients do not want to consult osteopaths due to their high charges and uncertainty of whether or
not they really need consultation. Online web chat will enable them to solve this issue
(WorkCover Queensland, 2015).
Cost savings on Radiography for Patients- By going for online consultations, the patients can
save an average of $218 on radiography fees which most of the times, are unnecessary
(Nikolova, 2019).
Business model description
Business model includes a software development which will be integrated in a mobile app and
desktop app. The client will interact with the software which will generate posture analysis
report and vitals measurement report. These reports will be forwarded to the therapists who will

then interact with the clients through chat or web chat sessions. These web sessions can be used
as consultancy sessions, follow up sessions or knowing the therapists sessions. It is at this point
that both therapist and customers can make or save their money (Laja, 2017).
Business model Canvas can be depicted as follows-
Client
POSTURE
ANALYSISSOFTW
AREMEASURING
VITALS
Primar
y
Report
Therapist
Client

As depicted in the business model canvas, the key partners would be therapists and patients
while the key activity of the app would be posture analysis, vitals checking and web chat
(Information Age, 2019). The app will be specified towards the needs of the customers and the
key resources which will be deployed in the making and promotion of the software will be
software developer, marketing analyst, digital and offline marketing specialist, expert physical
therapists to help with the designing of posture analysis app, AI integration etc. revenue would
be generated through annual subscription fees and minimal brokerage in the consultation fee
(Eldar, Kullmann, Marincek,Sekelj-Kauzlarić, Švestkova& Palat, 2009).
Logical and persuasive argumentation in regards to how uncertainty related to customer
desirability, technical feasibility and financial viability is addressed

One of the most interesting aspects of the app we aim to develop would be integrating artificial
intelligence and use of neural networks to improve the performance of our business modal. No
other business has done this yet where they integrate all three aspects viz. medicine, technology
and artificial intelligence to cater to a customer’s problem through online mode. This app will
have Artificial intelligence bots embedded into it so that every time, it learns from a new user
experience and integrates the new experience in artificial learning and neural networks. This will
improve the user experience over time and help a great deal in the marketing process too since
we can market this app as a completely new system which has never even existed before(Zapata,
Fernández-Alemán, Idri & Toval, 2015). The upper hand the app gains from the integration of
artificial intelligence can be hyped more by integrating augmented reality in the app. This
augmented reality can be used in the posture analysis tool itself for patient education, as to how
they need to actually consult a therapist because of their poor posture. The augmented reality can
show what changes poor postural habits may bring about in their bodies in long run if left
unattended(Powell & Landman, 2014) (Stoyanov et al., 2015) (Xu & Liu, 2015).
Lastly, the augmented reality can be of help to the therapists as well. Sometimes, in the rush of
attending the patients, some of the changes might go unnoticed by the therapists. In this scenario,
when the changes are depicted with the help of augmented reality, then the therapists get a broad
idea of what they need to treat as well. So including artificial intelligence and augmented reality
will create two way channels of benefits in the app(Mani, Kavanagh, Hides & Stoyanov, 2015)
(Martínez-Pérez, de la Torre-Díez & López-Coronado, 2014) (Masterson Creber et al., 2016).
Other than helping the direct stakeholders of the app, this new approach to mhealth app will also
mean that it would be comparatively easier to market the app as well. We can include many great

strategies of marketing as such that would eventually lead to greater success of the app(Chan,
2014) (Handel, 2011) (Hsu, 2016).
Value proposition development and delivery
Value proposition benefits have already been discussed in the section above. To determine the
value proposition development and delivery, we will use the parameters of a value proposition
canvas and determine the following values-
Pains Pain relievers
Decrease in number of clients
visiting physcal therapists creating online sessions for consultancy
uncertainty of the client to avail
physiotherapy/ bodywork services
connect client directly with the hterapist to give them
appropriate advice
too much costing of radiology
services
first receive confirmation from the therapist about the
need to actually avail it and then go for it
high consultation cost low online costs
Gains Gains Creators
Higher number of clients availing therapy
session
easy availability of therapist throuigh
online app
consolidated posture reports for clients and
therapists posture analysis software
lower drop sessions low consultancy fee