“Challenges ahead of digitizing Medical Care in India”
The Independence Day address of the Prime Minister launching the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) during and unprecedented novel coronavirus pandemic crisis, caught everyone’s attention. Yet, despite all his eloquence it was not clear to many what to expect in substantial terms, going digital has no doubt been a magic phrase that has often been repeated in multiple contexts in the country, and as yet another “Mission” for the health sector they waited for more news to emerge.
Digitization play crucial role in development of medical and healthcare in the country. Whenever the health and medical emergencies hits the underdeveloped countries like India it is impossible for them to fight it back in manner that others countries do. While speaking about the statistics India ranked among the top three largest healthcare markets in the world, India has massive count of 1,96,312 hospitals but when it comes to digitization somewhere we are lack in it. We must understand and adopt the new technologies in order to bring and enormous changes in our medical sector and healthcare sector.
The Indian medical industry has traditionally been a slow adopter of digital technology mainly due to the fragmented and complex nature of the industry. The medical and healthcare environment is more distributed and complex. As digital technology becomes more affordable and more accessible, a change in mindset becomes more and more essential. Digitization of medical products and processes, will dramatically change the game for everyone. Healthcare providers, to thrive in this environment, must be willing to look to the future and embrace change. It is also essential that they fully understand those issues which will have the most transformational impact upon their sector.
Digital transformation requires you to rethink all your issue processes. It requires an appropriate use of data and digital technology by putting the needs of the customer at the centre of the business. The disruption will motivate insurance companies and medical care professional and providers to shift health system driven models to a customer oriented model.
What is the need of Digitization in Indian Medical Care system?
There are couples of reasons which shows us that we need, digitization in the medical care system. Some of following are the main reasons among them (Speaking through statistical data):
India has 1 allopathic Government doctor for every 10200 people, one government hospital bed for 2050 people and one state-run medical centre for 90343 persons.
67% of Indian population lives in rural areas yet they are served only by 33% of the local Indian sector.
Indian has 81% of deficit of medical specialist in rural areas.
India spends the lowest only 4.7% of its GDP on health and medical sector.
To satisfy the ever-increasing demands for professional medical services and make quality healthcare more accessible to remote and rural areas, Indian Medical care and Healthcare must update itself and becomes digitized. Hence the digitization is the extreme need of time.
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| "Actions speaks louder than words" |
Following are the Challenges faced by Indian medical care in the way of digitization:
1. Current status of Medical Care in India
Along with the economic growth in the last few decades, there has also been surge of diseases affecting the health of the Indian population. Although, the percentage of people living in the poverty has reduced, there has been a rise in communicable and non-communicable diseases or lifestyle diseases (which accounted for 60% of deaths in 2015 from 40% to 2013) Along with the other industries, medical care in India has also grown manifold regarding both employment and revenue. According to research by Deloitte, medical care will be $280 billion industry by 2020. Despite this growth, there are several challenges that the medical sector has to overcome to serve its huge population.
2. Not enough funds go to medical care
According to statistics from 2014, India spends only4.7% of its GDP on health and medical sector whereas US allocates about 100 more. Due to this 60% of medical expenses of Indians met through personals savings compared to only 13% in the US.
3. Inequality in rural and urban facilities
In India unlike other countries, the urban vs rural divide is huge. Because the spending power is more by people in cities and towns, all healthcare services are diverted only to this sector leaving the rural areas lacking in medical facilities. Over 60% of hospitals, 70% of dispensaries and 80% of well trained and qualified doctors operate only in the urban areas.
4. Inadequate Infrastructure.
The ratio of the doctors, hospital beds, nurses to the number of the patients is alarming. There is one bed for every 2000 patients, one doctor for over 10000 people in government hospital. There is one state run hospital for every 90000 people. These numbers are disappointing when compared to those of peer countries. India also has a lower number of specialist doctors, especially in rural areas.
5. Lack of availability of new technology tools.
New technology puts a significant efforts in digitizing the medical profession but due to certain reasons the lack of technological tools makes the process more challenging in order to bring towards the beneficiary. So this in one of the biggest challenge in digitizing the technology.
So, this are the challenges which are in our way to of digitizing our medical system. By overcoming these hurdles we will surely attain our goal of National Digital Health Mission.
I think the problem is our GDP only 4.7% 🙄
ReplyDeleteYes, but other factors are also of same importance as that of it. We must focus on them to achieve our goal.
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