Barely one year since launch, Basma found itself facing one of the toughest health and economic crises Bahrain has witnessed in recent history: COVID-19. The startup, however, handled the pandemic rather well and turned it into an opportunity to serve the Kingdom in a substantial and meaningful way.
StartUpBahrain recently got together with Basma’s Co-Founder, Ali Alnoaimi to discuss Basma’s vision, how it works, and what makes it stand out in the competition, among other relevant details. Here’s a brief rundown of the conversation:
The concept that powers Basma
At its core, Basma is a provider of cloud-based enterprise-level virtual Tele-consultation platform with high-quality video. That’s the generic use case of the company’s flagship offering, although it has been fine-tuned towards serving as a comprehensive telemedicine platform.
“Simply put, Basma enables businesses and service providers to launch their own customized virtual branch in less than 5 minutes and start serving their customers virtually using end-to-end encrypted video calls,” noted Ali.
Basma platform comes loaded with an array of business-oriented features including, but not limited to, the ability to request signatures, instant file sharing, and real-time chats.
What makes Basma unique among competitors
According to Ali, there are a multitude of factors that help Basma stand out, the foremost of which would be Basma’s completely web-based infrastructure. He explained that because it is fully online, Basma’s telehealth platform is far more robust than its peers when it comes to implementing changes and updates. This is one key feature that also enables customers to join calls without having to install any third-party apps.
Besides that, Basma is optimized to be fully whitelabeled, meaning clients can easily tweak their end of the platform to match their branding.
Other key features included in the platform are:
- Smart Call Routing, which enables businesses and healthcare providers to route calls to the appropriate teams and personnels as and when required.
- Easy file sharing between customers and agents. This comes particularly handy during registration/form-filling, and identity verification.
- Easy signatures on the Basma app that allows customers to sign right on their mobile screen.
Compliance with regulatory authorities
When asked whether Basma has applied for an National Health Regulatory Authority (NHRA) license, Ali responded saying it’s not necessary.
He explained: “Since Basma is a platform and not a Health Service Provider, we don’t have to be NHRA licensed.”
With that said, all hospitals and healthcare providers (including doctors) that use Basma’s telemedicine platform are mandatorily required to be NHRA licensed.
Additionally, Basma is also taking all necessary measures to be compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) so the startup can soon offer services in Europe and the US.
Finally, we asked Ali about the impact of COVID-19 on Basma’s performance (it is worth mentioning that Basma was launched in 2019, barely a few months before the pandemic first hit).
He responded by saying that as COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, which resulted in both local and international social distancing work protocols, Basma’s industry has witnessed a significant increase in demand and development.
“We are continuously working to enhance the platform to meet various business needs and use cases, and we are in close engagements with potential clients both locally and internationally.”
If you have any queries about Basma and the services it offers, feel free to reach out to StartUp Bahrain using any of our social media channels over at Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn!
