The Digital Switch-over in Healthcare
By Rudrani Ghosh
The global pandemic accelerated the digital agenda in a few months and changed the entire panorama of almost every industry. The industries which will be able to reshape and redesign omnichannel transformations are the ones who will pull through, advance, and flourish. Just like any other industry, digitalization in the healthcare sector is also following a similar ambit and turning into something much more forward-looking.
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
On the occasion of Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Saturday the launch of National Digital Health Mission which will help reduce problems in getting treatment in the country and will bring a new revolution in India’s healthcare sector. Under this scheme, every Indian will get access to a health ID that will store the individual’s medical records.
Why do we need Digitalization?
Digitalization is not a COVID concept in the healthcare industry. It traces way back to 2007 when physician Tom Ferguson postulated the consumerist movement in healthcare by introducing the term ‘e-patient’. Later, several other milestones began to outgrow the digitalization of healthcare.
Telehealth and remote health care started to grow before COVID and showed the biggest growth during the pandemic.
Dr. Vikram Venkateswaran, Founding Editor, Healthcare India
According to Dr. Vikram Venkateswaran, the founding editor of Healthcare India and author of several papers on health and technology, "the foundational issue of digitization of healthcare when it comes to the country like India with its 1.3 billion population and geographical genotype-phenotype variation, it is very difficult to follow classical healthcare delivery model considering our low doctor-population ratio, insufficient population-bed ratio, shortage of health workers and inadequate health infrastructure.” Every parameter that is measured (given the size and scale of India) come out to be low. Thus “the only way out of it is to do some transformation that involves leveraging what we have and that is only possible through digitalization which will benefit us by capturing information and use these data to take proactive steps,” he adds.
Digitalization: The New Reality
What the medical futurist Bertalan Mesko and his team envisioned about the future, COVID-19 is turning it into a reality (from telemedicine to robots to AI). In a study conducted in 2017 by the Medical Futurist Institute, it was found that under the umbrella term of digital health, "disruptive innovations and digital communication" have become an inextricable part of providing the best healthcare services. A further study conducted by the American Medical Association (AMA) in 2019 reports that nearly half of the physicians are enthusiastic about new digital solutions as it helps to reduce stress and burnouts. Thus, keeping up with digital transformation and emerging technologies seems overwhelming due to the following reasons:
Increase of on-demand healthcare-The healthcare industry setting foot in digital innovation and technology as patients seek for on-demand healthcare at their convenience, on their own time and wherever they want to happen. Companies like Nomad Health connect physicians to medical facilities to provide on-demand healthcare to their clients thus meeting the changing needs of the patients.
The importance of Big Data-Predictive analytics, actionable intelligence, and big data have augmented the nexus between human-biology and extrinsic factors - thus providing preventive care and strategizing plans for better orchestration of activities via evidence-based decision-making.
The marvel of Artificial Intelligence:AI applications are developed to confront particular, real-world use cases that make the prognosis, monitoring, and treatment of patients more efficient, accurate, and available to populations around the world. Companies like MayaMD.AI – a virtual AI care solution, offers a multitude of roles from appropriate triaging to diagnostic tools to even sophisticated pattern recognition that accelerates and improves the quality of care.
We are not waiting
In the era of digitalization of healthcare, the patients are no longer waiting on the sidelines, instead, they have become active participants of their cure taking matters into their own hands. And as patients aren’t waiting, companies can’t wait either.
Companies are now incorporating aspects of gaming in their digital apps to boost user engagement. For instance, health trackers like Fitbit or Apple watches have introduced concepts of gamification to motivate users to stick to their workouts and earn personalized insights.
In the words of Dr. Vikram Venkateswaran, “Healthcare industry has already seen the integration of health and wellness with the digital and mobile technology via the tracking health applications. What digital transformation requires today is the empowerment of all the citizens in general which ensures equitable reach to one and all. The healthcare strategies should focus on how a citizen should never turn into a patient and thus all the people have to be empowered by the available information and awareness so that they can take charge of themselves.”
Finding Treatment via Puzzle Video Game
The distinctive way of engaging via video games to find treatments and vaccines is also explored by the researchers. An excellent example is that of Foldit’s approach for determining whether or not there is a native structural configuration (native state) that can be applied to relevant proteins in the real world.
Via this game, the players (without any prior biochemistry knowledge) compete to solve puzzles by folding protein structures as perfectly as possible using the tools provided in the games so that they best fit to a target. Researchers then can use the highest scoring solutions to target and eradicate diseases and create new insights and biological innovations.
Digital Switchover: A Long-term Psychological Transformation
“There is nothing permanent except change.” Heraclitus was absolutely right. And exactly that is the reason why we should steer the digital health wheel carefully adding depth and scope to healthcare.
A digital transformation is a system-based approach where all the stakeholders need to be considered. "Technology is the least to worry,” said Dr. Feroz Ikbal, Associate Professor of Hospital Administration of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) Mumbai, adding, “the transformation first has to take place within the organization, where the key stakeholders like doctors, nurses and frontline health workers can understand the need of it. And healthcare being a highly manpower intensive industry, it puts pressure on the employees to adapt to the constant change and so adapting to the changing technology requires continuous training.”
Thus, to effectively implement the digital transformation of healthcare we need to primarily look at the capabilities of the processes, the human capital alteration, and the infrastructure.