JOIN USA global hub for technological talent, India today is rapidly progressing along the curve in implementing technology-enabled healthcare, both for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Our healthcare systems have leveraged technology to build integrated healthcare delivery models, which facilitate seamless electronic medical rec-ords, hospital information syste-ms and telemedicine-based he-alth outreach initiatives for enhanced access to medical care.
Every year, nearly 36 million lives are lost to lifestyle diseases and more than 60% of the population in India bear the brunt of chronic diseases. It is estimated that the incidence of chronic diseases will cost India $6.2 trillion by 2030, adding to the already existing financial burden, and calling out for a paradigm shift in disease management. This complied with the lack of infrastructure, accessibility and quality healthcare across the economic scale of population has engaged the healthcare sector in combating the same with the fruitful use of technology.
Technology as an enabler of continuous innovations is set to transform the scenario by making equitable, affordable and quality healthcare accessible to the entire population. With the Government of India expressing its willingness and inviting private and public organisations to collaborate on providing better healthcare services to all, India as a country is warming up to the concept of convergence of healthcare and technology, and how it will bring about optimised and more precise results.
The ground work to achieve and maintain clinical excellence has already been done by industry pioneers who have blossomed throughout the healthcare delivery network. Over the last three decades we, as a nation, have seen a renaissance in healthcare. Now, our challenge is to nurture inclusive progress by providing ubiquitous healthcare access to address our dome-stic demands and also to measure up to our burgeoning credentials as a global healthcare hub.
eHealth and mHealth – the two revolutionary models that have opened up innovations in the delivery of healthcare – are assisting in building awareness of health related matters and also in managing chronic diseases. All of these innovations have created a very healthy phase of growth for the healthcare and IT industries; they have increased health and wellness awareness across communities and have benefited public health programmes and population health management.
IT solutions leader
India is undoubtedly the leader in IT solutions and tools that have helped in reducing complex labour and overheads in operations. Telemedicine is unparalleled in reducing costs and bridging distances. Tele-radiology is helping in increasing accessibility and reducing costs.
Innovative IT solutions at point of care help the clinicians and aide in managing patient safety and completely reducing adverse events. This greatly helps in increasing clinical effectiveness, generating positive outcomes, reducing infection rates and an overall reduction in the cost of healthcare.
Our country has been blessed with some of the smartest minds in ground breaking areas like mobility, big data, cloud compu-ting and nanotechnology. This expertise is translating to a metaleap of innovation in healthcare. Insightful apps, smart devices and big data in the truest sense are pushing the agenda of predictive and proactive healthcare. The composite deployment of Internet of Things, leveraging cloud computing, is an exciting emerging frontier.
Similarly, in healthcare, the usage of big data analytics not just enables clinical excellence but maximises operational efficiency leading to efficient models of financial excellence. Also, prescriptive and predictive analytics can be used in clinical workflows such that evidence-based medical practices can be suggested to the providers to enable efficient clinical judgments.
The effective use of predictive analytics can help in speeding up diagnosis of the patient condition thereby ensuring that the right treatment protocol is initiated as quickly as possible. This will ensure a shorter stay at the hospital which translates into lowering of costs and an overall increase in the operational efficiency of the health system.
India has high quality health infrastructure, highly skilled and talented clinical manpower and powerful information technology, all which help us attract global attention. Now, it is critical that a concerted focus on quality and continuous innovation is woven to help build the foundation to a stronger, safer and smarter healthcare system.
Across industries, IT has been used as an enabler, also more often as a game-changer in creating new business models, but in healthcare, it has the power to save lives.
(The writer is Joint Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals)