Issues impacting healthcare industry in 2017

Vivek Tiwari, Director & CEO, Medikabazaar began by speaking about the challenges he faced in terms of building a marketing engine for enabling medical institutions to gain operational efficiency. In his presentation, he highlighted the fact that India is home to around 17.5 per cent of the global population and accounts for 20 per cent of global disease burden, 27 per cent of neonatal deaths and 21 per cent of infant mortality. “Despite this, India has a weak primary healthcare structure. We are struggling with basic issues such as lack of sanitation and drainage,” he informed. Further, he spoke on regulatory issues that plague the sector such as price control on life saving drugs like stents, lack of health insurance penetrations within the country, inefficiencies in distribution of essential medicines and supplies, growing cyber security concerns and rising medical costs due to lack of transparency of prices.

Presenting some solutions to these problems, Tiwari stated that merger and collaborations for community care facilities, integrating new technologies in providing healthcare facilities can be very helpful. “There is a need to adopt latest advancements to tackle various public health challenges faced by the country,” he opined. He further gave a rundown on various trends transforming healthcare in India. “Biosimilars and mobile apps are some technologies that will certainly shape the future of healthcare,” he added.