Mumbai: Mohit Sood, Regional Managing Principal, ZS India ETHealthworld’s spoke to morning light On disruption, opportunities brought by the COVID-19 pandemic and how emerging technologies are changing healthcare delivery.
The digital revolution is changing the landscape of the healthcare sector. How ready is India to accommodate the changes? What are the current challenges in implementing advanced technologies? How are the challenges addressed?
Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Blockchain, 5G, Robotics, Cloud Computing and Internet of Things (IoT) has helped support three pillars: availability, accessibility and affordability of healthcare development globally and achieving universal health coverage (UHC).
The health-tech market in India is in its infancy but is developing rapidly, backed by capital investments and government support. It has been driving growth, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to fundamental changes such as rapid adoption of virtual healthcare and digital innovations, and public-private collaborations to develop vaccines and medical devices. The government has launched several well-designed schemes and programs for adoption of digital healthcare. The development of tech-based platforms like Arogya-Setu (for contact tracing, syndromic mapping and self-assessment) and Co-Win (for universal COVID-19 vaccination) are two classic examples.
However, the Indian market has faced several challenges in implementing such technology, including the need for major supporting infrastructure and a skilled workforce. In addition, some of the other challenges faced by the industry are lack of data access and standardization, concerns regarding healthcare data privacy and security, patient reluctance and regulatory ambiguity.
To neutralize the impact of such challenges, centrally-led programs like the National Digital Health Mission have opened doors to great opportunities to accelerate data collection, integrate with central repositories and synthesize information in a way that translates into maximum benefit for patients.
Additionally, industry stakeholders are focusing on investing in privacy-enhancing technologies like data encryption and training and building skills to handle AI-enabled software and applications. Companies are also planning campaigns to spread awareness and knowledge about the positive qualities of AI, which is important for aspiring professionals and patients.
What is your organization doing in the public health space? What are the use cases?
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) associated with lifestyle changes, ever-evolving and emerging pathogens that result in epidemics or pandemics, along with infectious diseases—pose a triple burden health scare for the Indian public.
It is now a known fact that medical care contributes to only 20 percent of health outcomes and the rest is driven by socio-economics and behavioral components. There is also ample evidence from the Commonwealth Fund and other organizations to show that countries with better health outcomes invest more in social services and ensuring equal access for patients.
We are partnering with various life sciences clients across the value chain with projects such as developing health equity strategies, understanding patient bias for trial recruitment, and identifying at-risk patients leveraging clinical and social determinants. In addition to our project work with life science companies, we are investing in health equity and other aspects of public health in many other ways. Our goal is to establish sustainable partnerships with other players in the healthcare ecosystem to expand equitable access to healthcare and improve health and wellness outcomes for all.
What percentage of the market remains underserved due to the use of traditional healthcare delivery approaches? How can accessibility and availability be increased in underserved regions?
Despite investments in the healthcare sector over the past five years, India is grappling with a staggering demand-supply mismatch for healthcare infrastructure and services. While the challenges are daunting, they provide a ‘tremendous opportunity to bring equity to healthcare delivery and disrupt traditional healthcare models’. Digital technology Undoubtedly, India will be the biggest proponent of this change. Telemedicine and e-health solutions are rapidly emerging as viable options to expand access to underserved rural markets. Care is moving more and more outside the hospital, and retail healthcare will make that a new reality. Health kiosks and mobile health vans can ensure easy accessibility and reduce the burden on clinical and hospital staff.
Additionally, government-led initiatives such as ‘Make in India’ to reduce prices paid by patients for products, Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) and push to deploy AI for EMR adoption and predictive analytics will likely enable better delivery. Treatment and early disease or risk pool detection. We have seen private players expanding beyond metro cities into tier II-III regions. Public-private partnerships will, frankly, play a key role in further enhancing the country’s health infrastructure for more resilient and robust care delivery.
In the last three years, India has witnessed a flurry of start-ups across the country. What are the shortcomings in the Indian scenario?
India has seen a surge in several digital healthcare startups mainly post-Covid-19, offering effective and innovative tech solutions, prioritizing convenience and access to care. In 2021, there were 3,548 active startups in the health-tech space, up 8.9 percent from 2020. Categories like e-pharmacy, teleconsultation and e-diagnostics, fitness, home healthcare, healthcare IT and analytics have emerged. These are expanding healthcare access, reducing costs, improving clinical outcomes and enhancing the overall patient-care experience.
However, various adverse factors or drawbacks were observed in the market scenario, which are as follows:
Regulatory Ambiguity: Vagueness around regulations has led to various issues such as lack of infrastructure and limited access to solutions for designing AI applications. Existing or recently formed AI companies are mostly startups, not recognized by national or international governing bodies. As a result, the penetration of AI in the Indian healthcare sector has been low due to difficulties in implementing solutions by new companies.
Lack of standardization: Being at an early stage, there are complexities and uncertainties in this field. Lack of data integration and standardization leads to inconsistencies in patients’ medical records and directly affects safe care. Therefore, embedded clinical guidelines are important for standardized and evidence-based practice.
Lack of Public-Private Partnership: New startups need proper exposure to offer and promote their products and services. One of the still largely untapped potentials lies in facilitating stronger partnerships between new-age health-tech startups and public institutions.
how Health IT Change the landscape of the ever-evolving nature of healthcare delivery?
Health IT has experienced disruptive changes over the past few years with the introduction of emerging technologies. Healthcare will continue to evolve through technologies such as AI, IoT and automation.
The e-health sector in India is poised to reach $9-12 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) by 2025 and $40 billion in GMV by 2030, according to a report by RedSeer, a Bengaluru-based market research firm. The Net Promoter Score (NPS) in the Indian e-health sector saw a 47 percent growth in 2021.
The healthcare ecosystem in the country will continue to significantly influence and transform with the help of the health IT sector. With IT transformations, the healthcare sector will continue to improve diagnosis, treatment, health record management and drug development.
What can healthcare players do to discover and leverage disruptive innovations to benefit patients and the business?
The Indian healthcare sector includes companies ranging from e-pharmacy startups and pharma companies to medical devices that provide products and services to a large population. Within healthcare, the health-tech industry is advancing and has emerged as a leader in terms of growth.
The health-tech market is primarily driven by innovation and large capital investment, which accelerates the advent of innovative products and services. Startups and other established players should pay attention to trends and developments in the industry, to find or capture the opportunities available.
Some key strategies for discovering and capitalizing on disruptive innovation are:
Outline the ecosystem strategy: To create an integrated ecosystem, companies must develop collaborative relationships with patients, healthcare providers and regulators who support them as they assess opportunities and analyze room for improvement.
During the pandemic, for example, tech-driven startups had a major impact on the use of telemedicine practices, home healthcare, video consultations, and remote patient monitoring. These startups were supported by the government through various initiatives and favorable guidelines like the Telemedicine Practice Guidelines 2020.
Digital Technology Deployment Support through Partnerships: The last few years have seen the industry being disrupted by patient-centric products and services – a domain that could attract healthcare players in the future. Healthcare companies with strong industrial hold continuously engage and develop partnerships with technology companies to develop innovative solutions for rapid testing and implementation at low cost and with low risk.
Analyze and increase organization agility: Lessons and learning from the pandemic era are very important for a firm to measure its actual level of agility and understand what can be done to improve it. Based on shared values and cross-functional mind share, companies must promote agility and continuously promote innovation.
