There are many online services that connect patients to doctors. How is Navya different?
Navya offers an online service which provides personally tailored expert treatment recommendations for patients with cancer. This service is the only online end-to-end solution for cancer treatment decisions; patients upload their medical reports, and receive an expert treatment recommendation through our online portal.
The service is modelled off of the processes for delivering treatment decisions in the best tertiary care centers (like TMC). There, trained clinical professionals spend significant time processing cases before they approach an expert. Since experts’ time is scarce, these professionals must synthesize a patient’s history and medical reports into a concise format so that experts can review them quickly. The experts then collaborate, drawing upon their experience to recommend the best treatment plan. Such a treatment plan follows international guidelines and is informed by the experience of the hundreds of cases the expert sees every week. cancer online consultation
Navya seeks to replicate this process in an efficient, accessible, and scalable manner. After patients, caregivers, or doctors upload patient medical reports through the portal on navya.care, patient advocates reach out to understand a patient’s complete medical history. Trained clinical staff analyse and extract the relevant information from medical reports. The Navya evidence and experience engines then determine the most applicable evidence based treatment options for each case. The experience engine’s innovative machine learning technology offers the unique ability to replicate the intuition experts gain throughout their careers. Finally, the patient’s medical background and treatment suggestions are presented to experts in a structured manner. The expert then reviews the case, and determines a treatment option. Navya combines their recommendations into a report written in accessible language by a patient advocate, who sends the report to the patient. All this is typically done within 1-3 days.
There are many online portals in the healthcare domain, which can be confusing for patients. Some portals are informational. Others allow patients to locate caregivers near them. Telemedicine services enable patients to audio or video calls with a doctor. Given the complexities of cancer treatment planning, where several reports need to be examined in detail, we believe that telemedicine solutions are suboptimal. Our unique system allows us to replicate these complexities. We offer cancer patients a complete solution which provides expert treatment recommendations tailored to their specific case.
Navya can provide treatment recommendations for patients worldwide, and is affordable for patients at all income levels.
Navya can help patients whether they have been recently diagnosed with cancer and no treatment path has been decided, or if they want the peace of mind of a second opinion. Especially in advanced-stage or complex cases, there is limited expertise available when determining which treatment will be effective. This is the most common scenario in which many patients reach out to us. Since Navya offers access to the world’s premier cancer experts, and our experience engine compiles data from numerous rare and complex cases, we are well equipped to offer recommendations.online consultation with oncologist
Many cancers are curable if diagnosed early and treated appropriately. The first treatment a patient undergoes thus offers the best chance of a positive outcome. Treatment decisions are also life changing clinically and financially. For this reason, everyone faced with a treatment decision should get the opinion of an impartial expert before beginning. Navya offers a way for patients to quickly receive an expert opinion tailored to their needs and preferences.
The core question that Navya’s expert opinion service answers is “What is the best treatment recommendation for my specific case?” In the patient report, the answer is explained in a manner that both the patient and the treating physician can understand and apply. It includes the details of which therapies to follow (surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or immunotherapy), and further details which may include specific drugs, dosages, and frequencies of response assessment. Reports follow internationally accepted guidelines of cancer care.
Patients sometimes ask for therapies that align with their preferences. Some desire to avoid surgery or prefer for more affordable options. Navya informs experts of patient preferences, and experts construct a treatment plan with them in mind. Reports sometimes include decision trees, which describe the pros and cons of different paths forward. For example, a decision tree might recommend surgery, but might suggest chemotherapy if the patient refuses or if the treating physician feels that the patient is not fit enough.
Patients also have the option to ask additional questions, which they often don’t have time to ask a doctor in a brief consultation. Some examples of questions patients ask include recommended diet, expected side effects, or effects on fertility. Patients also often ask us for definitions of cancer related terms.
As Navya is an online system, certain questions cannot be answered without seeing the patient physically. Fitness for surgery, for example, is best assessed by the local treating physician. Navya does not answer questions about life expectancy or curability of a disease.