Integrated Approach in Science & Technology for Sustainable Future : The aspects and initiatives in the Digital Healthcare Industry in India
The Current Scenario And Need Of The Hour:
Estimating roughly over more than 73 billion USD, the Indian healthcare industry has been expanding it’s horizons into various directions, turning to be one of the top developing industry in the country.
But despite all the attempts towards its polishing and development, the Indian healthcare scenario is nothing short of a paradox. While India is attracting patients from all over the world with world class hospitals, advanced technologies, highly qualified doctors, and health care professionals, on the other hand, the average Indian suffers from high prices, inadequate access, and inconsistent quality.
Image source: Reuters, April 2021
As a result of India's low per capita incomes, many Indians both rural and urban leave their healthcare needs unmet. Approximately 74% of the country's hospital beds and 77% of healthcare spending comes from the private sector. In India, it dominates tertiary care delivery. Inequitably, the growth of private hospitals has also occurred, with most of them located in major metros and Tier 1 cities. Quite a few people rely solely on the government to meet their healthcare needs, which are growing rapidly. However, despite progress, the basic issues of affordability, availability, and quality of Indian healthcare continue to affect a large portion of the population. Healthcare providers face increasing challenges around improving productivity and efficiency of services as a result of rising costs and reduced margins.
The Upcoming Trends: Technology In Healthcare
In recent years, we have also witnessed an increase in the number of patients receiving care in tier-2 and tier-3 cities. As the pandemic spread, patients from these cities were no longer able to travel to tier-I cities for treatment. Currently, tier-2 and tier-3 cities are building capacity to treat patients while diagnosis is provided by experts in tier-1 cities. Most of this occurs through the internet through e-consultations, telemedicine, and other such forms of intervention. In other words, this is connected care where eICUs, NICUs (neonatal ICUs) and Remote Operating Centres (ROCs) can be monitored by experts who are not really in the same geographic location. India currently employs more than 12 lakh doctors, about 35,000 government healthcare centres with over 10 lakh patients. With the use of digital approaches to healthcare, these substantial assets can be improved and utilised to their maximum potential. Through the convergence of products and services delivered through new mediums, a solution driven approach could drastically alter the healthcare landscape in the future!
Image source : Dr. Hempel Network
We can also observe, as a result of digitisation, a growing trend of online training and education of medical professionals. Earlier, most of the trainings were done in person. Today, e-Learning and the use of simulators are becoming more prevalent due to the greater use of the online medium, for which Covid-19 has much to do. The use of simulation technologies like haptic feedback makes online training more realistic. Through haptic feedback, trainees can get a realistic simulation of the jerks and vibrations they would experience during surgery otherwise.
With the increasing need for accreditation, it's no surprise that hospitals and doctors are investing in knowledge to ensure they meet global standards. In the last year, there have been many webinars and online discussions that are great opportunities for practicing doctors to stay up-to-date on the latest medical and surgical techniques. These opportunities result in better diagnosis and care.
NDHM & Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission: Initiatives In The Healthcare Scenario
Image source : abdm.gov.in
As part of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, technology such as telemedicine is being encouraged to help enable national portability of healthcare services to improve equitable access to quality health care
There are currently 17,33,69,087 Ayushman Bharat Health Accounts and 10,114 doctors as well as 17,319 health facilities registered in the Ayushman Bharat Disbursement Management System as of 24th February 2022.
The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) aims to create a seamline online platform through the provision of a wide range of data, information and infrastructure services. This will also lead to opportunities to standardise interoperable digital systems whilst also ensuring all the data and the patient information remains secure. This will be implemented via Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and Mobile (JAM) trinity.
How will it help citizens:
Under the ABDM, citizens will be able to create their ABHA (Ayushman Bharat Health Account) numbers, to which their digital health records can be linked. This will enable you to create health records across healthcare providers, and improve their clinical decision making.
The mission will improve "equitable access" to quality healthcare as it'll encourage the use of technologies such as telemedicine, and enable national portability of health services.
Image source : indianexpress.com
The Hurdles Faced
Developing health AI applications in India remains difficult due to issues related to data sharing, curation, standardization, anonymization, and validation. In spite of progress in new initiatives and regulations, they must be adaptable quickly and require cross-disciplinary cooperation.
Image source : Imprivata
A lack of data exists on how the general public and professionals perceive healthcare AI's potential benefits and drawbacks. A strong and consistent message is provided by all available studies, however, stating that AI innovations should complement healthcare professionals instead of replacing them, and that they should be integrated fully into healthcare systems.
It is important to deploy and integrate AI-based technologies in a controlled manner, with continuous monitoring and adjustment, if they are to have the potential to significantly impact patient care. Moreover, funding schemes may need to be reevaluated to ensure that everyone, especially the most vulnerable, receives high-quality care.
There are an increasing number of applications involving the use of artificial intelligence, ranging from image-based pattern recognition to data integration for disease prediction to chatbots that triage queries.
It should be noted, however, that although the advances are promising, they also pose significant challenges. If training datasets are too small, too skewed or poorly annotated, AI algorithms must be robust enough to prevent biased learning. In order to accomplish this, cross-disciplinary, international agreements are needed for data sharing, standardization, curation, anonymization, validation, and continuous monitoring. Digitally trained staff and widespread access to the latest technology are also needed to implement the tools in clinics. A tool's success depends ultimately on how comfortable clinicians and patients feel using it, which is why it must be included in the design and development process. A global effort is necessary to overcome one of the key hurdles faced by AI technologies.
Conclusion
In light of the trends discussed above, it is evident that healthcare is undergoing a digital transformation. Our future is characterized by connected care and patients are no longer constrained by geography when it comes to accessing care. The latest in online and collaboration technologies will enable our doctors and hospitals to deliver accurate diagnoses and treatment to patients in the future. In the coming days, what's needed is the determination and will to embrace this change and offer better healthcare to Indians.