In 2018, brothers Naresh and Haresh Ahuja of SMS Scientific Products Pvt Ltd, accompanied their father to a prostate consultation at Leelavati Hospital, Mumbai’s premier healthcare facility. Despite being a leading hospital, the doctor faced challenges explaining the necessary procedure, resorting to rough sketches on paper slips. This left the family feeling more confused when leaving the consultation room than when they had entered.
This experience sparked a realization of a significant communication gap between doctors and patients. Motivated to address this issue, the brothers decided to devise innovative solutions.
Can you provide a brief overview of SMS Scientific Products Pvt Ltd and its role in healthcare communication?
For the past three decades, SMS has been dedicated to designing and developing unique tools tailored to the needs of medical professionals. Their product line spans various categories, exemplified by PROTECH 24, a 24-hour effective disinfectant incorporating Nano silver technology, and SEAFA, a range of healthcare hygiene products formulated in accordance with CDC guidelines. The DOCARE range encompasses medical utilities, consumables, diagnostic tools, and medical sprays, carefully designed in consultation with experts across the medical field to provide genuine utility to healthcare professionals.
Additionally, DUK, or Doctor Utility Kits, are thoughtfully curated for specialists and consultants, addressing their specific needs. The SCIENCE FOR DOCTORS range introduces innovative desktops designed to enhance interactive and engaging consultation experiences for both patients and doctors. It serves as an indispensable and convenient tool for medical practitioners.
What sets SMS apart is their meticulous approach to product design and crafting, considering the unique requirements of doctors. Through consultations with medical experts, their products are purposefully created to offer genuine utility and quality, surpassing superficial solutions.
The SFD range, specifically designed for doctors, stands out for its unique ability to educate patients in an easily understandable format. This aids patients in better comprehending and managing their conditions, facilitating doctors in explaining diseases and interacting with patients at their level of understanding.
What makes SMS Scientific Products a key player in the healthcare industry, particularly in doctor-patient engagement?
Originally, patient education products consisted of wall hanging charts, leaflets, and a limited range of anatomical models. However, SMS took the lead by introducing an innovative range of products that had never been seen before, creating a win-win situation for patients, doctors, and pharmaceutical sponsors.
Patients are empowered through engaging and highly interactive consultations with doctors, where they receive easy-to-understand and relevant information. The content, rich in images, is curated by medical specialists and the SMS design team. Patients leave the doctor’s chamber fully satisfied, armed with accurate knowledge about their disease and its management, enabling them to make informed decisions about their condition.
Doctors appreciate the SFD consultation tools for their ability to simplify communication of complex issues. These tools not only save time spent on each patient but also serve as a checklist, preventing the omission of relevant points. The accessibility of SFD products, designed as desktop tools, adds to their appeal. The “write n wipe” feature allows doctors to use a whiteboard marker for effective communication, and wiping off with a duster promotes sustainability by saving paper. The evidenced and referenced medical content ensures the communication of accurate and precise information, while handcrafted anatomical models showcase disease progression and complex conditions in an attractive design, making them an indispensable part of a doctor’s toolkit.
Pharmaceutical sponsors find the SFD range to be an effective and novel product for brand reminder/recall. The frequent use by doctors and the product always being within arm’s reach make it an enduring tool. Its sturdy construction and use of high-performance plastic, which is recyclable, contribute to its durability. Pharmaceutical sponsors see the value in using these tools for public service initiatives in patient education.
SMS offers a comprehensive solution, starting from discussions and meetings about the topics to be covered, through the creation of product content, slide design, product development, manufacturing, and finally, delivery to pharmaceutical sponsors. The entire process is handled by SMS with a complete professional setup, ensuring a timely and seamless journey from design to delivery.
Could you elaborate on the range of products offered by SMS Scientific Products, especially those designed for doctor-patient communication? How do they contribute to the effectiveness of doctor-patient communication?
Our product range includes a diverse array of tools designed to enhance medical communication. Some notable offerings include:
Write n Wipe Slides on Stand: These interactive slides on a stand provide a dynamic platform for effective communication, allowing information to be easily conveyed and wiped clean for continued use.
3D Therapy Anatomical Board: This innovative board adds a three-dimensional element to anatomical explanations, offering a tactile and visual representation for a more immersive learning experience.
Flip Wipe: A versatile tool that combines the benefits of a flip chart with the convenience of a wipeable surface, ensuring efficient and reusable communication in various medical settings.
Visual Guides: These guides are thoughtfully designed to present complex medical concepts in a visually engaging manner, aiding comprehension and facilitating more effective communication.
Patient Explanation Write n Wipe Book with Tear Pad: An invaluable resource, this book provides a writeable surface for doctors to illustrate and explain medical information to patients, with tear-off pads for patient reference.
Flip Wipe with Patient Leaflets Tray: Combining the benefits of a flip chart and leaflet holder, this tool offers a dual approach to patient education, ensuring that information is accessible both visually and in print.
Slides with Anatomical Models: These slides integrate anatomical models, enhancing the visual representation of medical conditions and facilitating clearer communication between doctors and patients.
Slides with Stationery Holder on Side: A practical design, these slides feature a built-in stationery holder on the side, ensuring that doctors have easy access to writing tools, making annotations and explanations seamless.
This comprehensive range of products caters to various aspects of medical communication, providing doctors with versatile and effective tools to enhance their interactions with patients and colleagues.
Can you discuss SMS Scientific Products’ collaborations with leading pharmaceutical companies in India and how it impacts their product offerings?
SMS collaborates closely with pharmaceutical companies, engaging with their product management teams to create genuinely unique and customized products. This collaborative effort ensures that the products developed are not only innovative but also tailored to the specific needs of each pharmaceutical company. The pharmaceutical sponsors appreciate these products as valuable inputs that effectively communicate information about the diseases targeted by their products. This relevance is crucial, making it more impactful for doctors to utilize these tools in assisting their patients, ultimately encouraging brand recall of the sponsored pharmaceuticals.
In addition to working with product management teams, SMS actively seeks the insights and guidance of Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), who are eminent doctors leading in their respective fields. By incorporating the opinions and expertise of these influential medical professionals during the product development phase, SMS ensures that the final products are not only useful but also highly effective when used by doctors in their practice.
SMS boasts a successful track record of developing products for major pharmaceutical companies, including Abbott, SUN, Cipla, Torrent, Zydus, Alkem, Macleods, Lupin, Ipca, Aristo, Dr. Reddy’s Lab, Microlabs, and many more. This extensive portfolio reflects SMS’s dedication to meeting the diverse needs of the pharmaceutical industry, showcasing their ability to cater to large and reputable companies within the healthcare sector.
How does collaboration with pharmaceutical companies contribute to the diversity and impact of SMS Scientific Products?
SMS maintains ongoing engagement with both the marketing teams of pharmaceutical companies and the medical fraternity. This continuous interaction serves as a valuable platform for comprehending the specific requirements and needs of these stakeholders. It plays a pivotal role in empowering the product design team at SMS to create unique and purposeful products that cater to diverse styles and information needs.
The extensive product range offered by SMS is a direct outcome of these continual interactions, collaborations, and meetings with pharmaceutical partners. This iterative process contributes significantly to enhancing the overall utility factor and precision of product content. The culmination of these efforts results in products that not only have a maximum impact for patients while also resonate effectively with doctors.
The synergy between SMS’s medical and design teams becomes evident as they adeptly navigate the intricacies of product development while understanding the nuanced needs of pharmaceutical sponsors across various therapy areas. This collaborative approach ensures that SMS remains at the forefront of creating innovative and tailored solutions that address the evolving requirements of the healthcare industry.
What sets SMS Scientific Products apart in the medical landscape, considering factors such as product design, content, and delivery?
Distinctive Factors Setting Us Apart:
Efficient Product Design:
Our products boast an easy and sleek design, desktop compatibility, ensuring they occupy minimal space on busy and cluttered doctor desks. This design approach prioritizes convenience without compromising functionality.
Research-Driven Content Design:
Our content design is meticulously crafted based on research and evidence, ensuring precision and accuracy in conveying medical information. Continuous consultation with doctors during the development phase adds depth and detail to our products.
Patient-Friendly Design and Anatomical Illustrations:
We prioritize patient-friendliness in our design and anatomical illustrations. Our commitment is to create visuals, designs and precise anatomical models that are not only informative but also easily understandable for patients, facilitating effective communication between doctors and their patients.
Original Design and Concept:
As the original creators and inventors, the entire idea and concept behind our products are uniquely ours. This commitment to originality sets us apart, ensuring that our offerings stand out in the market with a distinct identity.
End-to-End Product Control:
From the initial design phase to manufacturing and delivery, we maintain full control over the entire product lifecycle. This comprehensive oversight allows us to ensure consistency and quality at every stage, meeting the highest standards from inception to the hands of the end-users.
Multilingual Capabilities:
Our adaptability extends to language diversity, as we are equipped to develop products in multiple regional and foreign languages. This capability ensures that our products cater to a broad audience, fostering inclusivity and accessibility across different regions and linguistic preferences.
Can you elaborate on how the products foster meaningful connections between doctors, caregivers, and patients, adding value to healthcare communication?
Effective communication plays a pivotal role in healthcare, serving as the cornerstone for meaningful connections. The key to fostering these connections lies in delivering accurate and pertinent information in a simple and easily understandable format to both patients and caregivers. This streamlined communication facilitates informed decision-making with the guidance of healthcare professionals, nurturing trust, camaraderie, and a sense of shared understanding.
This approach not only helps to alleviate unnecessary fears but also contributes to the building of confidence among patients and their caregivers. The result is a substantial addition of real value to the lives of patients and those who support them, creating a positive and supportive healthcare environment. By emphasizing clear and accessible communication, we aim to empower individuals, enhance their overall experience, and promote a sense of partnership between healthcare providers and those under their care.
Are there any upcoming initiatives or future plans that SMS Scientific Products is looking to implement in the healthcare communication space?
We’ve curated an extensive content bank featuring copyrighted medical content, a valuable resource that we leverage across our designer desktops to innovate and create new tools and products catering to crucial therapy areas. Our strategic initiatives involve reaching out to a broader audience, maximizing collaborations with pharmaceutical sponsors, and facilitating accessibility for individual doctors in semi-urban and rural areas.
In tandem with our commitment to technological advancements, we’re actively developing digital hybrid products. These innovative solutions are designed to streamline communication, ensuring ease of use for both senior patients and doctors who may not be as tech-savvy. Our focus on these digital products reflects our dedication to making healthcare communication more accessible, inclusive, and efficient, embracing advancements while prioritizing user-friendly interfaces for all demographics.
How does SMS Scientific Products envision contributing to the transformative journey in healthcare communication in the future?
We recognize the significant gap in patient education, an area that demands attention. At SMS, we believe that for treatments to be genuinely effective, patients must be empowered with correct, precise, and accurate information tailored to their specific conditions, provided by their doctors. We understand that a proper understanding of medical information is pivotal, constituting half the battle toward successful treatment.
In a country like India, characterized by low literacy rates and a multitude of languages, addressing this challenge becomes even more crucial and relevant. SMS is enthusiastic about taking the lead in this transformative journey to enhance patient education. We are committed to revolutionizing the way consultations take place between doctors and patients, contributing to an improved and more meaningful doctor-patient conversation. Our goal is to bridge the existing gaps and empower patients with the knowledge necessary for active participation in their healthcare journey.
