Data Driven Spine Rehab

Eight years after setting up its first clinic in Mumbai, QI Spine Clinic has reportedly prevented over 8000 spine surgeries. Founders Nithij and Anuj Arenja currently have 22 clinics across four cities and plan to expand to 80 clinics in the next five years, with a pilot clinic in the US to go live in a few months.A review of their clinical and business strategy

- Viveka Roychowdhury

Achoreographer with severe slipped disc starts dancing again. An 80 year old with osteoarthritis avoids spine surgery. A wheelchair bound housewife starts walking again. A 54-year-old runs 15 marathons despite disc derangement. A 40-year-old professor suffering from severe back pain recovers within 12 weeks of specialised spine therapy.

The common link to all these cases is the Mumbai based QI Spine Clinic (the Clinic), positioned as India’s first specialised medical service dedicated to the non-surgical treatment of back and neck conditions. The Clinic was born out of the pain and personal experience of one of the founders, Nithij Arenja, who was unwilling to undergo spine surgery while dealing with his own obesity and back pain.

His search for a conservative non-surgical path of treatment towards recovery from back pain led him and brother Anuj to collaborate with global experts. The result was a proprietary, technology enabled spine rehab programme that employs a data driven approach combining custom built software, predictive analytics, devices and services to deliver superior patient outcomes and patient efficiency.

Business strategy

QI Spine Clinic is one of the ventures of Arenja Holdings, an investment house that specialises in the promotion and incubation of greenfield healthcare ventures. The group has investments in a couple of healthcare ventures besides the Clinic ranging from gyms (QI Lifecare), health and fitness equipment (Trinity Healthtech), and ambulatory cardiac care (New Heart). With a focus on common chronic lifestyle related diseases, these businesses claim to leverage advanced technologies and evidence based protocols, aiming to change the conventional approach to prevention, diagnosis, treatment and even reversal of these diseases. QI Spine Clinic's tag line is 'Reversing Spinal Disorders' while New Heart is about 'Reversing Cardiac Disorders'.