Sai Pratyush, Additional Vice-President – Product Marketing – Managed Services,
Tata Teleservices, elaborates on whether technology can rescue Indian healthcare services from the dismal state it is in and transform healthcare delivery into a world class service
Around 70 per cent Indians live in remote villages, more often than not, lying way outside the catchment area of government hospitals.1 A country of more than 6,00,000 villages has a little more than 23,109 single-physician clinics (primary health centres) serving it with not more than four to six beds each.2,3 The shortage of qualified medical professionals is one of the key challenges facing the Indian health care industry. Deloitte’s Healthcare Outlook Report 2015 states that India’s ratio of 0.7 doctors and 1.5 nurses per 1,000 people is dramatically lower than the WHO average of 2.5 doctors and nurses per 1,000 people. The report estimates that the industry needs an additional 1.54 million doctors and 2.4 million nurses to match the global average. Can technology rescue Indian healthcare services from the dismal state it is in, and transform healthcare delivery into a world class service?
While there are many hurdles and loopholes, technology is triggering an evolution of healthcare services in India. Today, patient care experiences are top of the mind in the healthcare industry across the globe. According to a report by Frost and Sullivan, India’s healthcare information technology market is expected to hit $1.45 billion in 2018, more than three times the $381.3 million reached in 2012. Discrepancy in number of hospital beds and patient-doctor ratio is a humongous challenge, but enhanced medical technology is steadily helping solve this problem. It is practically not possible to have reputed hospitals or even medical centres in every village or district. In such cases, tech-enabled systems and messaging technologies come to the rescue. Government agencies and healthcare centres are now able to collate information on healthcare indexes and the progress of people’s health in a particular district or village. Online patient health records, has cut down on redundant procedures such as physically filling forms before admitting a patient or meeting a doctor. Moreover, Mobile apps help track doctors, including specialists that suit your requirement, and also aid in managing vitals to test blood pressure and sugar levels.
In many ways medical technology has transformed our attitude toward healthcare. Technological evolution has shifted focus of the medical fraternity toward prevention, unlike earlier when doctors and researchers would only react to medical emergencies. Individuals have become proactive rather than reactive to health. For example, Fitness Bands empowers a person to monitor his fitness parameters depending on the number of steps he walked during the day, and in some cases even detect heart rate. In terms of medical information, all you need to know about a disease is available at a click of a button. Due to increased Internet penetration and rise in ownership of handheld devices and laptops, the individual today is well-informed about his/her medical condition.
From a patient’s perspective medical technology is beneficial in terms of bringing down hospitalisation costs. Those who can’t afford to pay hefty hospitalisation bills now have access to cost-effective medical services. Outpatient care in hospitals is either unavailable due to lack of space in the hospital or lack of resources with the patient. Technologically advanced surgeries have reduced the duration of hospital stay. In case of a heart bypass surgery, a person doesn’t have to be hospitalised for a long time. With real-time sensors doctors can monitor spikes in heart rate of a post-op patient.
From the healthcare industry perspective, the advantage is the utilisation of tech-enabled infrastructure both within and outside the hospital. Ambulances with location-based devices are helpful in a country-like ours where traffic is a persistent issue. GPS services help identify alternative routes and reduce the duration required to reach the person in need of immediate medical care. Additionally, ambulances equipped with enhanced machines empower the medical staff onboard to examine the vitals of a patient in transit to the hospital. High-end conferencing devices can scale-up medical services, as doctors can connect with the ambulance staff and guide them in case of an emergency. Hospital infrastructure is transformed as well and resulted in efficient functioning. Tech-enabled building management solutions features such state-of-the-art sensors that can detect anomalies related to temperature required to transport and store life-saving drugs are helpful. Insulin, for instance, can go bad after about 28 days if kept at room temperature. On the other hand, properly refrigerated insulin is known to last for up to 12 months from date of purchase.
Technology is not just connecting hospitals through data and voice technology, but has gone beyond that. Patients can today look at apps where they can find the nearest doctor based on his/her speciality, scan through feedback from others and then take a call on who they want to consult. Easy availability of information to both patients and doctors has fastened the process of diagnosis. While the former is now more aware of medical conditions, the latter can take decisions on real time basis. Most of these sophisticated services are more often found at private hospitals, since the public ones are vulnerable to implementation challenges such as lack of funds. However, thanks to mobile apps, Anganwadi and government healthcare workers are empowered to take corrective measures. For instance, earlier lack of communication services made it difficult to remind rural families about vaccination drives in their village or nearest town. Today, a simple SMS alert is sufficient to ensure that polio drops are administered to every child even in inaccessible areas, in time. With messaging technology such as WhatsApp, doctors can access patient records irrespective of their location; one doesn’t need to travel to another city or country for a second opinion.
India’s healthcare sector is yet to scale-up to its complete potential. There is a dire need to improve health outcomes, especially at the grass-root level. Making medical services available, accessible, and affordable to a billion plus people spread across the length and breadth of the nation is a major challenge. Adding to this is lack of adequate funds that can expand medical infrastructure. In such a scenario it’s about time that we leverage technology to develop state-of-the-art ambulances and diagnostic labs, which have the potential to reach people in the remotest part of the country. Technology has and will further help create patient-centric healthcare systems that can improve response time, reduce human error, save costs, and impact the quality of life. While the IT-enabled transformation journey has just begun, it is safe to diagnose that technology is democratising the world of healthcare services.
References
1.http://www.gramvaani.org/?p=1629
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Primary_Health_Centre_(India)
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Village
4. https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/vod/vodsum0401.htm
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