Montreal Tech Watch

You may have noticed it: last week, quebec-city based myca launched a full-blown PR campaign to announce their new platform for telemedecine, which will be called santé sans file, to be launched in June this year in Quebec.

In practice, patients will be able to hold a virtual consultation with a doctor via the platform. However, myca present it as a full technology solution, that spans from scheduling, electronic records for patients, remote medical monitoring devices, video conferencing, and finally to online prescriptions and diagnosis.

Possible channels for interactions are via a webcam, or with mobile phones equipped with a camera phone, or even via goold ol’ phones. One consultation costs $50 for the patient, and would allow patients to get answers for small medical problems that don’t really require a face-to-face and full medical consultation. It’s also noteworthy that the consultation cost is not covered by the RAMQ, the service in charge of healthcare in Quebec.

Myca has been working on their solution as early as summer last year, and they have received lots of coverage last week from the press, TV, the governement, and the College des Médecins, a professional body for doctors in Quebec. Interestingly, they didn’t get any coverage in blogs, but I guess it’s due to the fact that they don’t cater to the social media / Internet crowd but are reaching for a mainstream audience, even though they are doing significant technology R&D for their product.

Healthcare is a well-known problematic issue in Quebec and in Canada, with a service that is not really up-to-par and this is where santé-sans-file comes. Of course, this is not limited to Quebec, as myca is also launching the platform in other regions, this time called Hello Health I will track closely what myca is doing. In Montreal, we also have yourteledoctor.com, which is playing in the same field, and presented at the last startupcampmontreal. The key for each startup is convince both potential patients and doctors that they have the best designed system for patients’ needs.