By Dr Rajendra Pratap Gupta
With the launch of 5G this month, the pace of change in healthcare has become exponential. 5G is a technology whose implications in healthcare are beyond comprehension. Technology adoption is now a foregone conclusion. It was time to discuss how technology is disrupting healthcare, so we hosted this global event Digital Health The summit
India has to focus on some major challenges for digital adoption. First of all, we need to look Small healthcare institutions (SHCOs), standalone clinics and individual doctors, represent about 80 percent Healthcare providers in India. They need proper guidance to adopt technology. In the absence of correct information and investments, smaller hospitals and practicing physicians are left behind or lose investment or are taken for a ride by IT vendors and eventually, their patients will be captured by larger HCPs (Health Care Providers). ). The goal of digital health fails when only three or four large hospitals take advantage of the technology to develop. Ultimately, these big hospitals will do for small clinics or doctors what Amazon and Flipkart have done for standalone retailers! Therefore, it is high time for small hospitals and physicians to wake up before it is too late. I would conclude that ‘those who use digital health will replace those who do not use digital health’.
Patient-centricity is key: When technology adoption is uneven, patients ultimately suffer the most because patients have to carry paper files when moving from one hospital to another, and medical histories may be lost or misplaced. /Incomplete information is provided to the provider, which may result in compromised care delivery. We need to bridge this significant technology gap between small hospitals and individual physicians to accelerate overall digital adoption in healthcare. This will be a key focus at the Global Digital Health Summit to be held in New Delhi this month.
Also, we need to talk to people who have transformed healthcare using digital tools. To this end, we need to get all leaders in a room and address the issue of investing in technology and how it affects healthcare delivery and outcomes. This is the main focus of the summit. Before, this subject was never given attention; Hence investment in tech by healthcare has been slow.
Start-ups will disrupt healthcare as more prominent hospitals protect their balance sheets and acquire smaller providers. It is the start-ups that will solve the legacy challenges faced by healthcare. The summit focuses on start-ups, their dos and don’ts and issues for scale. Five global tech leaders will spend just five hours answering questions posed by these start-ups in a masterclass, and this is the first time that a one-to-one conversation with these start-ups is being held. Also, three start-ups will launch their disruptive products at the summit.
We also need to address the gender gap in the health-tech industry. The data shows that the number of starting points for both genders enrolling in healthcare courses is almost the same. But as the hierarchy rises, women are left behind. The 2021 Global Health 50/50 study reveals that men hold 70 percent of senior positions and women make up a significant majority of junior researchers and frontline healthcare workers. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021, it will take 136 years longer than 2020 to close the gender gap. Gender inequality in the physical world will be reflected in the digital world too! We need to provide an encouraging ecosystem for women to take up more senior and leadership roles. The summit will launch a larger campaign to focus on ‘Women for Digital Health’.
Lower middle income countries like India have always been ‘healthcare professional shortage’ countries. The only solution to these problems, he said, is to adopt digital consultation by leveraging the network of primary health centers and allied health professionals across the country. Now with the launch of 5G, we can go to digital hospitals for digital consultations.
Last year, the concept of metaverse emerged, and HCOs are implementing metaverse in healthcare. Leaders in Metaverse implementation are part of the summit and will share what Metaverse can do for healthcare.
With the efforts of the National Health Authority and e-Sanjivani, India has taken a giant leap in digital adoption, but the distribution is uneven across states. At this summit, we are announcing a Digital Health Index for states in India to measure digital adoption and maturity.
At the summit, we are launching an exciting initiative – Project Chinta 2028 where we are trying to leverage technology to equip chemists working across the country to become neighborhood primary health centres. We hope that we can double the number of chemists in this decade by focusing on their business model as healthcare services and neighborhood community health hubs.
Digital health professionals need networks to learn, share and grow, and the Global Digital Health Professionals Council, launched at the summit, will fill this gap.
This is an idea and action summit. We are talking about the ideas that will work and the actions needed to change healthcare. 5G has already launched, Health 5.0 has begun, digital health has become the default operating system of healthcare and everyone in healthcare needs to use it.
Dr Rajendra Pratap Gupta, Co-Chair, Global Digital Health Summit, Former Advisor, Health Minister of India
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