Nicaraguan Creates App for Telemedicine Services
EasyMD is designed for Latin America
The app created by Nicaraguan Nicolas Ibañez was included in Forbes Central America’s list of
“30 promising new businesses.”
HAVANA TIMES – Physical therapist Nicolas Ibañez is the brains behind the “EasyMD,” application, an innovation “Forbes Central America” called “the first platform in Latin America to revolutionize the health industry.”
With EasyMD, users can “consult” with doctors and psychologists twenty-four hours a day, in addition to purchasing pharmaceuticals, and scheduling laboratory exams from home. They can also request appointments with specialists. The application is now functioning in eight Latin American countries.
In order to have access to the doctors, the patient uses the option: “begin general medical consultation,” then fills in the answers to three basic questions: “symptoms, allergies to medications, and chronic illnesses or other medical conditions. They then can choose to chat with a physician or consult via video-call. The doctor then forwards their diagnosis and prescriptions electronically.
To use the service, patients can choose between three monthly subscriptions. A “Basic” subscription, for US $4.95, gives them access to doctors 24 hours a day, and to discounts on laboratory exams and medications. A “Plus” subscription for US $9.50 includes all the services of the basic plan, plus a free exam and one consultation with a specialist every three months.
The “Premium” option for US $17.50 monthly is yet another tier. This level of service, according to Nicolas Ibañez, is aimed at patients with chronic conditions, who then have access to a free specialist consultation; pharmacy, imaging, and physical therapy discounts; standard laboratory tests (blood count, stool and urine tests), plus more specialized laboratory exams (metabolic, cholesterol, A1C blood sugar).
Directory of 40 specialists
In addition, the application has the option of monitoring vital signs, cardiac rhythm, respiration, oxygen and stress levels, and blood pressure through a facial scan from a cellphone camera.
EasyMD has a staff of doctors and psychologists who handle the consultations, in addition to a directory of over 40 specialists who charge “from US $15 to $50, in comparison with the private hospitals where [seeing a specialist] could cost US $40 – $80,” Ibañez detailed.
The application has also signed on with 100 related providers, including pharmacies, laboratories, dental clinics, opticians, spas, and physical therapy clinics.
“The idea is to give the user the power to decide who, when and where to be seen, based on their economic capacity,” Ibañez underlined.
The platform already has a base of 250,000 clients in eight Latin American countries: Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, and Mexico, through local companies that offer the services.
A physical therapist and a computer engineer, the force behind EasyMD
The idea for EasyMD came to Nicolas Ibañez while he was working at the Brookwood Medical Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, where he had his first experience with the use of health technology.
The physical therapist also worked at the Birmingham Sport Medicine clinic, also in Alabama. Ibañez studied Sports Medicine and Kinesiology and is an osteopathic medicine specialist.
Ibañez returned to Nicaragua in 2016 and opened the country’s first sports medicine clinic, which he called FisioMED. Noting the “great demand” for medical attention, he got the idea of creating micro-clinics to serve a greater number of patients. However, the Covid-19 pandemic killed that idea, and his clinic began offering online attention.
Ibañez teamed up with another Nicaraguan, Julio Solis, a computer engineer specializing in web development, e-commerce, cloud services who was working with technological tools in US hospitals.
Together, they pooled their savings to create this application. “I began with an investment of $25,000. Then I brought in a friend who works in financing, who put in another $25,000; later we went up to $75,000, and then $235,000. Now the company is worth eight million dollars,” Ibañez noted.
“The idea in the medium run is to extend the company to all the Central American countries, reach the Caribbean and add in the rest of southern Latin America,” he noted.
EasyMD among Forbes’ “30 promising businesses of 2024”
Forbes Central America included EasyMD among its “30 promising businesses of 2024.” Ibañez is the only Nicaraguan entrepreneur on the list.
“We feel very proud. This mention also speaks to the fact that the magazine is looking for innovation in industries that maybe people don’t think about,” commented the EasyMD founder.
Forbes Central America is a prestigious online magazine focusing on the world of business and finance. Its most famous publications are the rankings of millionaires, stories about rising businesses, and its annual list of the 30 most promising businesses.
“This initiative [EasyMD app] stands out as the first platform in Latin America that revolutionizes the health industry by centralizing all this sector’s services in one application,” the magazine stressed.
I am currently studying Software Development and project ideas come out of many medical options, such as an app that brings your medicine to you wherever you are, another one that allows you to do online consultations and more ideas that are completely feasible and we use them as examples, but I never imagined that an app like EasyMD existed. It also reminds me of volunteer work to teach seniors how to use technology to do all sorts of things.
Among those things the most important and emphasized is healthcare, and this app sounds like a good option.