Annie Mathew, Director, Asia Pacific Alliances and Business Development, BlackBerry opines that mobile applications will revolutionise healthcare segment in India
60 per cent of hospitals in India are situated in urban areas whereas about 80 per cent of its population lives in rural areas, which have minimal healthcare facility
– Deloitte report
89 per cent of rural Indian patients have to travel about 8 km to access basic medical treatment
– Study by Indian Institute of Public Opinion
A quick glance at the above figures by both private and public research groups clearly underline the urgent need for a massive technological development in the Indian rural healthcare segment. Till date, rural India is still battling with high income disparity, lack of basic infrastructure, incidence of fatal diseases and unavailability of quality and affordable primary healthcare services.
Additionally, with rising awareness of the importance of healthy living and advances in medical science and technology in urban India, hospitals today are expected to improve quality and minimise risk in patient care, improve care outcomes, and tackle healthcare cost inflation, all at the same time. Overall there is greater pressure on health delivery organisations to improve their clinical quality and efficiency across rural and urban India. The key to responding to such expectations is to become more skilled at leveraging their data, consolidating and quantifying, and making it accessible, anytime and anywhere. This, combined with India’s vast expanse and lack of last mile penetration of healthcare services, has compounded the problem greatly.
The solution
As complex as the problem is, the solution is fast becoming quite simple – mobile technology. The rapid advancement in the technologies, ease of use and the falling costs of devices have made mobile technology an appropriate and adaptable tool to bridge the digital divide, especially in the healthcare segment. Mobile healthcare is rapidly gaining grounds amongst the developer fraternity. According to research report by Research and Market, the mHealth market is estimated to be valued at $6.6 billion in 2013 and is expected to reach $20.7 billion by 2018 at a healthy CAGR of 25.5 per cent.
Imagine a system that allows the patients in remote villages to get easy access to doctors based miles away- today this is reality!
Easy accessibility of medical records- today this is reality!
In an attempt to bridge the gap and bring quality healthcare to rural population, Balabhai Nanavati Hospital (BNH) decided to utilise current offerings and development in the mobile technology space in India. In association with BNH, UST Global launched an exclusive telemedicine application for mobile devices which enables doctors to provide clinical health care to patients situated in remote locations. In this application, the remote clinic staff enters the visiting patients’ demographics, vital signs, illness details, preliminary diagnosis information, and uploads existing medical reports. The assigned doctor reviews the patient details and performs consultation with the patient remotely using a video session launched through BlackBerry Messenger (BBMTM). He provides the final opinion and uploads the prescription via the application. The remote clinic staff downloads and hands over a printed copy of the prescription to the patient.
While easy access to trained doctors is imperative, easy accessibility of medical data too plays an important for timely treatment. Today, mobile technology is enabling hospitals and doctors to acquire, store, process and secure patient data on the cloud, made accessible through a simple mobile interface. For example, Max Healthcare has launched an application that securely connects an archive of medical information like radiology images, lab reports and patient charts with smartphones that clinicians can access wherever and whenever. A critical aspect of patient care, however, is being able to capture clinical information at the point of care. Solutions such as AppMobilizer can allow doctors to enter patient care information directly into the various health assessment forms; that data is then transferred to a back-end database for reporting and billing purposes.
Taking this one step further are smartphone apps that are able to serve as clinical calculators and decision-support tools helping prognosis, guiding treatment and dosage. Today apps are being created to serve as databases of reference materials or even ECG guides, eliminating the need to carry around EKG cards. Apps aside, mobile technologies like near field communication have great potential once electronic health records become more mainstream. Imagine doctors and nurses who move from one patient to another being able to tap a smartphone against a tag, and the relevant, recent page of that patient’s record pops up on screen.
Apart from having remote access to information, technology now enables easy access of medical staff to the patient as well, while on the go. A recently launched application/ webportal service called Practo, provides the user information on doctors, assists then in booking medical appointments etc. With over 100,000 registered doctor profiles from across India and Singapore, this service provides a vast array of information to consumers across time and geography. With just a click the patient can confirm appointments with doctors listed on Practo at any point in time. Additionally, they can also view detailed information on doctor’s specialisation prior to booking an appointment. This application experienced a huge uptake by consumers in the market, indicating increased adoption of mobile technology.
The above is one such example of many such technology based ‘smart’ solutions that are being developed in this segment corresponding to a wide array of ailments, leaving consumers spoilt for choice. According to a Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) webinar, titled “The new consumer nirvana: Digital Health”, conducted in 2013, there are 31,000 health and medical related apps in the market today; 44 million expected to be downloaded in 2014, and 142 million expected in 2016. This space is growing at a rapid speed. Apart from enabling doctors to take medical science to rural India, applications are helping consumers to stay healthy and fit. Right from checking daily calories intake, to suggesting consumers the desired calorie intake, monitoring heart rates 24×7 and methods of combating obesity; applications are proving to be the most sought after technology today. In a survey conducted by McKinsey and Deloitte on mHealth, patients revealed that they experience improved convenience, enhanced quality, and affordable care using mobile enabled personal health and fitness applications.
Let’s make it happen!
As India goes digital, mobile broadband will play a key role in making healthcare accessible to all. The healthcare providers need to leverage the technology solutions and recent developments in technology for outreach of quality and affordable healthcare services.
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