Nilesh Aggarwal, CEO, IJCP Group and Founder Medtalks discusses the paradigm shift that COVID-19 has initiated across sectors, especially healthcare, making telemedicine the go to platform for doctor consultations, treatments, opinions
COVID-19 has confined us to our homes with social, economic, and outdoor lives in a near complete shutdown. Even an essential service like healthcare has been affected badly. In the wake of the outbreak, most hospitals shut down their outpatient departments and patients suffering from chronic diseases were advised not to visit any medical facility for routine check-ups or follow up visits. The confusion and chaos of initial weeks slowly subsided and now the central and state governments have put in place contingency plans and strategies. There is now an increased focus on strategies related to life beyond lockdown.
The lifting of lockdown will allow people to move around and carry out their daily activities such as jobs, businesses, education, and seeking healthcare. However, the apprehensions and mental repercussions of the pandemic will linger on. The new normal will be greatly different from how we have been managing things so far.
The changes that we are going to witness will revolve around two key aspects.
1. Strict adherence of sanitation and hygiene guidelines
2. Fear of getting infected
There is no COVID-19 vaccine or drug in circulation, and it will take quite some time before an effective solution is found. Until then, people will have to continue their daily life activities, but with precautions like social distancing to prevent the infection. As a result, while healthcare services will be sought, the approach will become different.
We can already see how telemedicine has turned into a life-saving tool for healthcare systems — almost overnight. For instance, it has helped isolated patients communicate with their near and dear ones; and enabled doctors to monitor a vast number of patients recovering at home. In just a matter of weeks, healthcare systems have undergone a major transformation and this crisis will mark an end to the resistance against telemedicine. There is no going back to the past even after this pandemic is over. Regular check-ups, follow up visits by doctors, daily nursing support, physiotherapy, pathology sample collection, dialysis or IV drugs etc., and elder care will be some of the services that would be sought within the home environment. This wariness related to getting infected with the COVID-19 or various other microbial infections will also make an impact on surgeries. Future patients might be less likely to go under the scalpel until the surgery is important for their physical well-being.
Other areas of medical operations will also witness a lot of procedural changes in the future. Health education, CMEs, and various other theoretical education elements will now move to the online education model. Classes will be conducted via live webinars and study material will be digitally shared in the form of e-books, PDFs, and presentations. Healthcare providers are increasingly spending money online for courses and diplomas. The pharmaceutical marketing spend of the top 100 companies is about Rs 20,000 crore out of which the spending on online courses is approximately Rs 200 crore.* This has been tremendously accelerated by the COVID-19 crisis and is expected to grow at over 100 per cent year on year.
One of the major concerns in Indian healthcare processes has been the very high involvement of paper. Whether it is a patient’s admission file or prescription papers, everything is documented, and a large number of such paper data is maintained by various hospitals and diagnostic service providers. These paper-based processes will go digital to reduce human intervention as well as the carbon footprint of hospital operations. Doctors will provide digital prescriptions and medical records will be stored electronically. Diagnostic labs will share the reports online with the patients and treating doctors. This will make the processes more efficient, touch-less, and also eco-friendly. Going forward, as digital processes become the norm, even online pharmacies will become much more popular.
The digital spend on health currently is Rs 410 crore and growing at 27 per cent CAGR. This will see an increase in the times to come.**
All medical services will slowly resume in a staggered manner sooner or later. However, if the COVID-19 crisis has sent across a message to the world, it is this: human beings are vulnerable and there is no health system which can be enough to step up to a challenge such as this. The onus instead is on the world population to work in tandem with the healthcare system, accept new ways of reaching out to specialists, and utilise healthcare appropriately. This system cannot be taken for granted henceforth and will change – but only for the better.
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