A new era begins for business process outsourcing

The talented youth of Bangladesh can establish a firm foothold in business process outsourcing (BPO) globally with the help of Augmedix Inc, said a co-founder of the Silicon Valley-based healthcare company.

Pelu Tran said they are going to create a workforce of 7,000 people in Bangladesh in the next five years.

In May, he visited the company's Bangladesh office and development centre, which was established two and a half years ago.

Augmedix, a medical startup, was founded in 2012 by two Stanford graduates: Pelu Tran and Ian Kazi Shakil, who has roots in Bangladesh.

The company currently serves doctors in 13 states in the US and is expanding rapidly.

They recently set up centres in four major cities in India and have an aggressive plan to expand in Bangladesh, if the right environment and appropriate assistance is given by the Bangladeshi government, Tran said.

Medical assistants or scribes will be adequately trained to enable them to work alongside highly qualified doctors in the US in real time, he said.

Augmedix has already started recruiting Bangladeshis who will provide the initial scribe support, including updating patients' medical history and other relevant data into the database, for doctors in the US, by sitting in Dhaka.

“We want to bring the world to Dhaka and at the same time, Dhaka to the world.”

“We will be providing a professional and safe working environment to these scribes, both male and female, while simultaneously providing the opportunity to work alongside highly skilled doctors and medical professionals based out of the US,” said Tran.

The knowledge transfer that will happen in Bangladesh for the health sector is immense, he said.

The Augmedix Dhaka office has also provided back office solutions to software specialists. It has built the first application for Google Glass that enables doctors to access patient information.

The centre enters information into the US government-mandated electronic health records, on behalf of the US doctors, enabling them to do what is most important -- having conversation with the patients.

During his visit, Tran, also the chief customer officer of the company, signed a memorandum of understanding with Ernst & Young, and Leveraging ICT for Employment, Growth and Governance project under the ICT ministry.

Augmedix has already applied for registration of their centre to be designated as a private software technology park (STP) under the Bangladesh High Tech Park Authority's new policy.

"We are very excited and we hope it will be approved at the earliest, preferably within 30 to 45 days by the ICT ministry, to enable us to begin development and hire 400 to 450 employees within the next two years.”

Tran was impressed by the smart and ambitious youth, whom he met during his visit to Bangladesh and is excited to be able to connect them with the global market.

All Augmedix employees will be working with leading edge technology while communicating with their clients, such as, doctors and large hospitals in the US.

Pointing out the immense opportunity of this market, Tran said English is a business language and the youth in Bangladesh must become proficient at it.

“Bangladesh is in an advantageous position where 65 percent of the population is under 35 and very tech savvy, making the country an ideal location for any global company's operations.”