Increased health seeker demand and direct ownership of the patient are driving a major transformation in India’s healthcare ecosystem: PwC India

The impact of COVID-19 across the various sub-sectors of India’s healthcare landscape is uneven

Large-scale deployment of digital technologies and innovations are transforming India’s healthcare landscape post the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report launched by PwC India, titled ‘A new healthcare era -Trends in a post-pandemic world.’

The report highlights emerging shifts in the healthcare domain. Some of the key changes witnessed in the sector are:

• The increased focus on digitalisation has helped in accelerating contactless healthcare and faster decision making. Technological innovations have further helped patients and consumers to understand diseases better and subsequently, demand higher-quality healthcare services.
• There has been a clear shift from brick-and-mortar healthcare centres to virtual-first care during the pandemic. There has also been a transition from medication to holistic addressable adjacencies, thereby disrupting traditional pharma practices.
• It is interesting to see how digital as a lever is unlocking agility and helping players move up the value chain across the sustainable well-being spectrum faster than ever before. The telemedicine model of the past is now becoming a full-stack virtual care model.

Commenting on the study, Dr Rana Mehta, Partner and Leader Healthcare PwC India, said, “Voice-based AI will bring in the next big transformation in healthcare. Such a technological advancement would enhance the upstream value of the healthcare framework and further usher in the ambient era of VUI. Consumer demand, innovation in technology, and enablers are driving alternative models of care and transforming the healthcare landscape.”

As per the report, contactless care is gaining ample momentum and the focus is moving towards reducing and optimising the number of touchpoints between the health system and health seeker, without losing the quality of care.

This new need to optimise steps has resulted in deep minimalism – a concept closely associated with the ability of a system to simplify steps without compromising with quality. This includes decision support to virtual treatment enablement, single engagement with multiple touchpoints, telemedicine to teletherapy and graphical user interface (GUI) to voice user interface (VUI). The ecosystem has enabled access to quality healthcare through digital health, open network and open protocols.

Consumer preferences are driving the evolution of healthcare delivery models which creates added value for all the players in the ecosystem, be it capturing of data to use of insights engines and advanced analytics. The pandemic’s impact compelled healthcare organisations to rethink, reprioritise and reengineer the business models. They are now addressing the emerging challenges for the entire healthcare delivery ecosystem, such as adopting virtual-first healthcare delivery models on a larger scale. This allows for a more efficient, sustainable, technology-enabled and scale-ready healthcare ecosystem. COVID-19 has created a window of opportunities for molecular diagnostics, the potential for which has largely remained untapped till now.

The healthcare ecosystem is now exploring more holistic models of care delivery. The preparatory shift across the healthcare value chain aims at improving both business and health outcomes. For example, the oncology space has undergone a major transformation with the emergence of more distributed models as the demand for personalised and advanced therapy increases. The government and the private sector are taking various initiatives to increase health insurance penetration, coverage and innovation, universal health insurance coverage through digital exponential technologies; and early detection of illness to continuum of care.