How ERC Eye Care’s Phygital Model is Transforming Eye Care in Northeast India

By Dr. Parveez Ubed, Founder & CEO, ERC Eye Care

In Northeast India, technology doesn’t sit in labs or conference halls; it rides in vans that travel over muddy roads, visits tea gardens, and connects villages through invisible data pipes.

When we started ERC Eye Care, more than a decade ago, our goal wasn’t to build a futuristic digital health company. It was to answer a simple question: “How can quality eye care become reachable, affordable, and dignified for those living far from hospitals?”

The answer turned out to be a model that sits between two worlds-phygital healthcare, where physical infrastructure meets digital intelligence. From a patient’s doorstep in rural Northeast India to a surgeon’s console, every step is connected through data, trust, and design.

From Doorstep to Hospital: How Care Flows

At ERC, our digital healthcare ecosystem ensures that care flows seamlessly, from first screening to surgery and beyond.

1. Discovery at the Doorstep

Our frontline teams conduct regular ERC Eye Camps in villages, market towns, and tea estates. Each eye camp functions as a portable micro-clinic, equipped with digital vision testing devices, slit lamps, and fundus cameras.

Patient data, demographics, diagnosis, and retinal images are entered into our cloud-based ERP on tablets, even in low-connectivity zones. The system syncs automatically when the network returns, ensuring that no patient record is lost.

2. Eyeglasses through Predictive Fulfillment

Nearly 70% of patients screened at our camps need glasses. Our ERP uses predictive analytics based on local trends to carry the right stock.

Patients with common prescriptions receive glasses immediately. For those needing customized lenses, the prescriptions are uploaded to our ERP, routed to ERC’s central fulfillment center, and digitally tracked until delivery. Within 3-4 days, patients receive their spectacles at their doorstep, powered by a digitally connected fulfillment system.

3. Tele-Ophthalmology & Specialist Care

For cataract, glaucoma, retina, or corneal conditions, our ERP flags referrals to the nearest ERC hospital. Here, tele-ophthalmology bridges geography. Ophthalmologists in our Hub locations remotely review images, provide pre-surgical clearance, and conduct post-operative follow-ups through encrypted data links.

This allows a patient from Boko or Barpeta to receive the same level of specialist care as someone in the city, without multiple long and costly trips.

Built for Bharat

Our technology stack evolved from Northeast India’s ground realities.

• Offline-first ERP: Functions without network coverage, syncs data automatically.
• Bilingual Interfaces: Local language and English for ease of use by both staff and patients.
• Data Intelligence: Every camp, consultation, surgery, and spectacle order links to a single patient ID for full continuity of care.
• Predictive Analytics: Anticipates demand for surgeries, glasses, and medicine stock, guiding procurement and logistics.

A Low-Capex Model Built for Speed & Sustainability

Today, ERC Eye Care operates seven hospitals across Northeast India.

We have treated over 1.5 million people, delivered more than 5 million eyeglasses, and performed over 50,000+ sight-restoring surgeries.

Our hospitals are modular, digitally linked, and right-sized for demand, typically built at one-third the cost of conventional eye hospitals. Every center is configured for maximum throughput with minimum overhead:

• Compact layouts optimize staff movement and patient flow.
• Shared teleconsultation capacity reduces the need for full-time specialist presence.
• Integrated ERP systems reduce duplication in billing, inventory, and reporting.
• Predictive analytics ensure optimal use of consumables and surgery slots.

Because every operational layer, from community camp to surgical unit to fulfillment center, is digitally synchronized, we minimize idle time and resource wastage.

As a result, each ERC hospital reaches operational break-even within 12–18 months, far faster than traditional models.

This financial agility allows ERC to keep prices affordable while ensuring sustainability, proving that doing good and doing well can share the same balance sheet.

Data with Dignity

Every digital record at ERC represents a person, not a number.

We use anonymized data to understand patterns of blindness, gender disparities, and regional disease prevalence, helping design better outreach and even influence state-level policy.

But our rule is clear: data must serve people, never the other way around.

Lessons from ERC’s Playbook

After a decade of experimentation, ERC’s model offers three clear lessons for those building healthcare for the next billion:

1. Design for constraints: Technology must work offline, in local languages, and with intermittent infrastructure.

2. Integrate the value chain: Efficiency comes not from size, but from alignment, when outreach, diagnosis, treatment, and fulfillment speak to each other through data.

3. Empower the frontlines: Digital tools should extend the reach of field workers and doctors, not replace them.

These principles make the ERC model not just successful in Northeast India but replicable anywhere that healthcare meets geography’s limits.

The Road Ahead

As we move forward, ERC’s focus is on strengthening digital integration while staying rooted in human care.

Upcoming initiatives include:

• AI-assisted retinal screening for early disease detection.
• Vernacular chatbots for post-surgery guidance.
• Expanded fulfillment centers to reduce spectacle delivery time to under 48 hours.
• Digital eye-health registries to support regional research and public policy.

Our goal: To reach 5 million more people in the next 5 years, not through expansion alone, but through technological precision and empathy.

[Disclaimer: This is an authored article, DHN is not liable for the claims made in the same.]

Stay tuned for more such updates on Digital Health News