Improving the accessibility, affordability, and quality of care should be the heart of the primary healthcare system. While the Covid-19 pandemic crippled India’s primary healthcare system, it also accelerated digital health transformation across the industry. Digital health tools like point-of-care diagnostic devices, teleconsultation applications, EMR/EHR systems etc., facilitated a rapid response and in turn saw a huge uptake—which has laid a foundation for changes in the delivery of care to improve accessibility, affordability, and quality of care.
Accessibility: About 75% of all healthcare resources such as doctors, hospitals, and diagnostic facilities are concentrated in the urban areas which house less than 30% of the population. This has resulted in a tremendous lack of primary healthcare access for the rural population. People need to travel to address minor concerns which costs them both, time and money, over and above actual medical expenses. It’s easier, in this scenario, to ignore health concerns until serious intervention is warranted. Easily curable conditions like Malaria or Breast cancer lead to mortality due to delay in seeking intervention. Thus, there is a prevalent tendency to ignore health conditions until one becomes sick enough to warrant urgent medical care. This challenge of providing ‘care near home’ is now being effectively overcome by integrated digital healthcare support where point-of-care diagnostic devices, telemedicine consultations, and preventive management of diseases. For example, eSanjeevani OPD, a doctor to patient telemedicine system developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in Mohali under the Ayushman Bharat Scheme of the Government of India has improved healthcare access in rural communities. Daily over 40,000 patients use eSanjeevaniOPD to seek health services remotely.
Affordability: India has one of the lowest per capita healthcare expenditures in the world. In fact, it is less than even 10% of the global average. While government healthcare facilities offer free treatment, the cost of medicines and diagnostics is still required to be managed out-of-pocket by the public. Due to the lack of doctors and facilities at government-run hospitals, people prefer private hospitals. Further, the government sector accounts for only about 1/3rd of the overall healthcare ecosystem, and the majority of the services especially in the diagnostics arena are managed by the private sector.
In such a scenario, there is an urgent need to develop and deploy affordable cutting-edge technologies. Health-tech innovators are building IoT-centric connected solutions enabling patients to manage their health more affordably by encouraging preventive lifestyle changes, facilitating disease self-management, and lowering the direct and indirect costs of clinic visits, travel or unpaid time off work.
Quality of care: The application of artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics in healthcare has significantly improved the outcomes and quality of care. AI’s biggest benefit comes in the form of the ability to repeatedly process data and conduct tasks such as analysis of lab tests, evaluation of scans, offering data-driven medical consultations and customisations as per a patient’s medical history. Computerised patient records can reduce medical errors, improve patient safety, and promote quality improvement in diverse patient settings. AI and Big Data are streamlining the operational process of clinical trials resulting in the development of medicines at a faster pace.
Digital health is vital to strengthen any country’s primary healthcare system. As per World Health Organisation, to make digital health a reality in primary health care, countries must address its key components. These include: building the physical infrastructure, deploying appropriate services and applications, developing a capable health workforce, ensuring a sound legal and regulatory environment, and improving governance, policy, standardisation and interoperability.
Undoubtedly, India has embarked on a path to build a digital healthcare ecosystem There will be greater emphasis on out-of-hospital healthcare for disease treatment and prevention. Handheld and personalised IoT devices will lead the diagnostic and disease management efforts and with the unveiling of the NDHM, integration with health insurance and other components is the next step in this direction.
It remains to be seen if the pipe dream of equal and affordable universal healthcare for all will become a reality courtesy of the digital healthcare innovations taking place in India!
The writer is the CEO of HealthCube.