Health is the primary concern of a person. It is generally assumed that if a person is physically fit, he/she is a healthy person. But what is forgotten, is that to be healthy, both physical and mental fitness is important and somehow, mental health is neglected to a great extent. As a result we see a lot of health tech companies providing advanced technical solutions to healthcare organizations in general but very few health tech companies focus specifically at solutions for mental health. One such company is Humane Business Intelligence Technology Solutions (HumaneBITS) which is led by Madhuri Mandaogade, the CEO of the company.
Raised by a single parent where education was given utmost importance, Madhuri pursued a degree in engineering. To take it to the next level, she went to the California State University to complete her masters in computer science. Soon, she joined the Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD) in Los Angeles.
Working at CARD was indeed the beginning of a new chapter in her career. At CARD she realized how much she loved designing solutions for clinicians, children and parents. At CARD, she worked closely with the Clinical Director. Along with the director, Madhuri designed a very crucial and groundbreaking data collection application for CARD.
The Rise of HumaneBITS
Madhuri never thought of switching her job from CARD. However, due to personal reasons, she had to return to India where she co-founded HumaneBITS along with Neelam Chavan. As she was very close to CARD, she decided on continuing to work with them remotely from India as a consultant. Surprisingly, CARD is still one of the biggest clients which Madhuri and her team have retained through commitment.
Humane Business Intelligence Technology Solutions, the name came from its strong belief in being humane in anything they do and the importance of data and analytics in its domain. HumaneBITS has two arms – First is about subject matter expertise in the domain of behavioral and mental health solutioning and second is Software Development Services.
Madhuri says, “Under the umbrella of Subject Matter Expertise solutioning, we customize our products to fit customers’ needs and provide consultation services. Our experience of over 10 years of the domain enables us to provide the consultations for betterment of the organizations. We have seen the world of mental and behavioral therapy services from all possible angles- patients, payers, providers, RCM (Revenue Cycle Management), clinical, operations, compliances, client management and everything in between, across several different countries.
We have ready solutions for common pain points which we have seen over the years. We work with organizations to customize our solutions and implement it in collaboration with their existing teams.”
However, the second arm of the business, which is mostly to support the first one, accepts projects from domains outside of healthcare. Its main purpose is to keep getting exposure of various segments and keep the company up-to-date with the use of cutting-edge technology across the board. Eventually, enabling the team to combine its rich domain knowledge with expert technical talent, HumaneBITS has been taking on challenges without being limited to a certain area.
“We like to position ourselves as a health tech company with specialization in a mental and behavioral domain, along with exposure to various geographies and knowledge of exceptional challenges of this domain globally.” Madhuri adds.
Crossing the Obstacles
The decision to move back to India and to form a company without any backings was a result of novice passion, but sustaining a profitable business for all these years can be considered as an achievement. The domain, HumaneBITS works in, is relatively new and hence major updates happen every year. These include board rules updates, insurance providers updating terms or even government recognizing a behavioural disorder as a disability. “And you have to keep up with it, you have to learn, adapt and quickly be ready for next steps. Also, we work in several countries so that gives us the exposure of similarity and diversity across. It’s good in many ways but that shows us the need for standardization.” mentions Madhuri.
Regardless of all the challenges, the company has grown in all aspects over the years. Adding to this, Madhuri says, “Be it teams, skill sets, expertise, exposure, office sq. ft. area, fanciness of a cafeteria, professionalism, revenue, processes, our tools or confidence of situation handling everything has improved.”
More importantly, there is always something next to look forward to in every quarter, which tells a lot about the achievements or the prospect of it. The growth has also been organic which adds to the quality and beauty of it.
The Future Ahead
As a health tech company specifically focusing on mental and behavioural health, Madhuri and her team are already giving back to the community. It further plans on endlessly contributing its bit in the domain of mental and behavioural health tech.
HumaneBITS aims on enabling the kids in the autism spectrum, helping parents, and organizations through software tools. It plans on putting in artificial intelligence and machine learning advances to use in its domain. To conclude, Madhuri says, “Working with Autism therapy providers across the globe to bring standardization and affordable care through effective use of technology, basically doing our bit, is a dream we are always working towards.”
