Family health challenge opened eyes to painful part of patient experienceAs a teenager growing up in Tangkak, Johor, Kev Lim took an interest in computing thanks to his older brother who was pursuing a degree in computer science. Helping himself to his brother’s textbooks, Kev learnt about PCs and had a nice gig earning some money repairing PCs in the neighbourhood.
That growth trajectory saw Qmed Asia, with 47 employees, including 11 in the tech team, close a RM5.1 million equity crowdfund campaign on Leet Capital with 110 investors in April.These investors join the four angel investors who, over a period of three years, 2019-2021, came up with a combined RM1.5 million in funding.
He wasn’t motivated by money when fixing PCs as a teenager. “The best way to learn is by doing something,” he explains. Earning some nice pocket money in the process was a sweet bonus. But long hours spent on the job made it very difficult for the couple to devote the time required to tend to their daughter. Their guilt was compounded by the fact that both Kev and his wife were paediatricians. “It was emotionally very tough for us, realising that we were spending more time taking care of other parent’s children than our own,” Kev reflects.
“We are normally focused on how we can give our patients better management, medication, and investigations. But the patient journey is something we never think of.” He shared this issue with his childhood friends, Tzyy and Nic. To his surprise they agreed that something needed to be done to fix the outdated and highly inefficient system and were willing to leave their comfort zones to join him to do something about it together.
The queue solution was initially rolled out as a CSR project in four government clinics before being expanded to 200 government clinics , still on a CSR basis, to Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Sabah.