Digitization Of Healthcare In India; How Its Changing Treatment For The Better

One of our most important concerns is healthcare inequity, which can be efficiently addressed with well-designed digital solutions. Here's how digitization is changing India.

Digitization is a process of conversion of text, pictures and sound into a digital format that can be used by a computer. Digitisation can be applied to a variety of physical system processes to convert them for effective employment with computers and the internet. Digitisation can effectively overcome various issues of repeated and remote access, data storage and information sharing with ease, speed and very high affordability.

Healthcare needs transgress geographic boundaries, the relevance of time constraints, and variations of social capabilities. They also have a wide clinical spectrum. Thus, digitisation can be theoretically a huge boom for surmounting the challenges of these needs. India has been a global leader in adopting digital technology. It is therefore ideally poised and capable of exploiting the same for healthcare.

Digitisation Can Help Address Inequity In Healthcare Sector

Inequity in healthcare is one of our biggest challenges which can be very effectively bridged with optimised digital solutions. Patients in tier-2 and tier-3 cities as well as rural areas, regularly face the challenges of accessing specialised healthcare and need to travel to the larger cities for their health needs. The Covid pandemic precipitated this inequity causing immense hardships, risks, and sufferings to these patients. Earlier patients from these cities would come and seek treatment in tier-I cities. But, due to the Covid-pandemic, the treatment wasn't possible.

The telehealth market consists of telemedicine, tele-ICU, online pharmacies, mobile health, home diagnostic services, etc., and is the fastest-growing segment in the healthcare sector. Furthermore, it is poised to grow exponentially in the coming years.

Telehealth can play a vital role in enhancing the patient's wellbeing by providing uninterrupted medical services. Telemedicine offers access to medical consultation to a remote location. Now, the patients in these tier-2 and tier-3 cities are able to get diagnosis and treatment by the experts in tier-1 cities via e-consultations, telemedicine, and even merely a phone call. Here, we discuss digitization in detail.

Telehealth Reduces The Risk Posed By Health Diseases

Telehealth enables access to specialized medical consultation services across the country and significantly reduces the challenges of doctor availability. It can also help to reduce the physical burden of patients in tertiary-care hospitals. Remote access can also help to reduce the risks associated with exposure due to Covid-19. Digitisation is able to provide teleconsultations at home, can provide deliveries of medicines at home and can also enable the monitoring of such patients remotely. The telehealth market is capable of ensuring quality services at reduced costs and convenience, with a patient-centric value-based approach. Digitisation of patient records can become a game-changer for patient management and also long-term data management, research and health planning.

• Tele-ICU: A technology model enabling intensivists to remotely manage ICU patients across multiple locations from a command centre, rather than being at the bedside of limited patients. With the help of this technology, an intensivist can manage many patients at one time. Thus, remote intensive care is delivered promptly during pandemics.
• Health apps, wearables, artificial learning and machine learning are transforming an individual's capability of self-monitoring and instant assessment. These can be effectively combined with an expert opinion online for judicious and customised health management.

Several start-ups have come up with online pharmacies, mobile health, and home diagnostic services. Many leading telehealth online consultation platforms are witnessing a spike in the number of patients during pandemics. Telehealth has attracted a large number of customers online and has a long way to go. It is the most reliable way of fighting the pandemic.

(The article is contributed by Dr Ketan Parikh, Director of PyraMed, India's first unique telemedicine platform)