Operational Innovations and its Impact on Healthcare Delivery in India
Arvind Sivaramakrishnan is Chief Information Officer, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited. He is currently responsible for the IT strategy and implementation across the Apollo Hospitals group. He has previously worked as the Director of Clinical Applications at Healthcare Practice of Computer Sciences Corporation, Michigan USA.
The surge to bring out the potential of Indian Healthcare market needs to aim at finding suitable solutions to increase precision treatments, extending reach of healthcare delivery beyond urban cities, and to reduce considerable healthcare delivery cost. It is true that the Indian IT sector is expanding with more and more mobile phones and Internet cafes connecting people from even the most remote places in the country. This trend can be leveraged for reducing complex workforce and overheads in Indian healthcare operations. Telemedicine as an option can bridge distances while inducing minimal infrastructural cost.
As per estimates, the telemedicine market is made up of at least 800 million Indians. While lack of accessibility, infrastructure, and quality healthcare services have impaired healthcare delivery in rural areas, it is heartening to know that with the support from the government, India as a country is warming up to the concept of convergence of healthcare and technology, and how it will bring about optimized and precise results. Indian healthcare is today taking the centre stage with its growing potential to merge tools of Information Technology to deliver better healthcare services in our country.
However, India as a country can no longer afford slow transformation in healthcare. We need a dynamic change in ways of how healthcare can be better delivered to all. CRISIL projects the healthcare delivery market to grow at a CAGR of 12 percent and attain a reach 6.8 trillion by the year 2020, which implies that there is a vast scope for penetration and innovation in the current Indian healthcare condition.
The surge to bring out the potential of Indian Healthcare market needs to aim at finding suitable solutions to increase precision treatments, extending reach of healthcare delivery beyond urban cities, and to reduce considerable healthcare delivery cost.
The most approving route to reduce healthcare costs is to invest more on process innovation than product innovation. Healthcare providers innovating their business processes, not only reduce cost but also enhance efficiency and quality of healthcare delivery. With growing interest from the government to bring in more PPPs it is rather a good time for Indian healthcare players to horizontally and vertically innovate their separate healthcare activities.
It is true that the Indian IT sector is expanding with more and more mobile phones and Internet cafes connecting people from even the most remote places in the country. This trend can be leveraged for reducing complex workforce and overheads in Indian healthcare operations. Telemedicine as an option can bridge distances while inducing minimal infrastructural cost.
The usage of predictive data analytics can help in bringing about speed in diagnosis of patient conditions thereby ensuring that the right treatment protocol is initiated as quickly as possible. This translates to an overall increase in the operational efficiency of the health system.
On the other hand, connectivity issues, interrupted power, lack of trained people to manage the centres, and the preconceived notions of the prospective users — doctors and paramedical staff – come in the way of successful implementation. With combined effort of health institutions and with the government implementing various schemes to reduce medical cost, one could not deny that Indian Healthcare scenario is going through a revolution, the results of which will be reaped within a span of next 10 years. We as individuals need to accept and adopt the constant changes brought in through Information Technology in our health practices and make sure that India becomes the most preferred health destination of the world in the upcoming years.
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