In its December 2022 / January 2023 issue, Biznis.rs magazine featured Telmed in its startup section: teleradiology serving emerging markets — and the rest of the world.
How the idea was born
Ivan Jurčić first thought of teleradiology years earlier, while setting up a company recruiting medical staff and engineers in Qatar, where hiring on-call doctors was very expensive. After years of running companies abroad, he returned to Serbia during the pandemic and decided to build the idea himself. He presented it to Nenad Orlić, who already ran an internet-solutions company in Pančevo and chose to invest; the two spent the following year researching the market. Technical director Vladimir Jovičić joined to build the platform.
Why Africa
Africa has the fewest radiologists per capita — the article cites about one radiologist per million inhabitants. Equipment can be bought, but training a radiologist takes around ten years. Telmed’s answer is to connect radiologists from Eastern Europe with hospitals in emerging markets, reaching clients through equipment distributors who can now offer a complete radiology service alongside their devices.
“We started with radiologists, but my idea behind all of this is to have ‘doctor as a service’, just like ‘software as a service’ — so that anyone on the planet can afford access to a doctor.” — Ivan Jurčić
Plans at the time
- Grow the network towards some 22,000 radiologists from Eastern Europe, then expand to the Middle East, Asia and South America.
- A professional network where radiologists share images and opinions.
- A team for AI assistance that helps radiologists recognise disease.
Many of those plans have since become part of our platform — see ExaWorkS and what we presented in Dubai in 2026.
Source: Slađana Vasić, “Teleradiologija u službi zemalja u razvoju, ali i ostatka sveta”, Biznis.rs, December 2022 / January 2023 (in Serbian) — PDF of the article.
