When Digital Meets Health

Synopsis: GoI’s new initiative ‘Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission ‘has the potential to revolutionise patient care.

Introduction

Currently, with the processes followed in hospitals when a patient develops any complication, it gets difficult to track events. Bedside paper records contain very little detail to analyse and interpret with accuracy.

Today it is a nightmare for doctors to get all the medical data required to make accurate clinical diagnosis by the patient’s bedside. Doctors are under tremendous pressure due to the fear of possible human error, which can adversely affect a patient’s life.

However, things are going to change with the launch of the ‘Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission’.

How ‘Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission’ will improve health sector?

Technology with protocol will make India’s Health sector as one among the safest industries in the world: Unfortunately, in healthcare delivery it is difficult to follow treatment protocols since over 90% of hospitals in developing countries including India do not have Electronic Medical Records (EMR). In this regard, EMR will help us document real-time events happening around a patient, inside the hospital with seamless movement of data between various stakeholders on a mobile platform.

Affordability, Accessibility: Providing smart digital tools to doctors, nurses and technicians, morbidity mortality in healthcare will come down significantly, access to healthcare will improve and the cost of healthcare will come down.

Facilitates globalisation of India’s health care: The Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission will open the door for Indian digital health start-ups to dominate the global digital health industry.

Mobility: A unique digital health ID will help chronic patients carry their medical records on their phones which can be seen by doctors on their computers anywhere.

Nudge people to consult doctors at the earliest: Earliest For every medical problem starting from a headache to cancer, first interaction with a doctor will happen online. Consulting a doctor online will become a pleasant experience instead of painful hospital visits. In the process, patients will consult doctors online at the early stages of the disease and this will help in effective treatment of disease.

Avoids repetition: Since most of the blood tests, CT scan, MRI, ultrasound reports will be available on the cloud from anywhere, patients do not need to go for painful and expensive repeat tests.

Facilitate analysis of Data: Soon data analytics will build clinical decision support systems on EMRs which will suggest alternative diagnosis based on the patient’s condition.

Abolition of Quackery: Since only registered doctors will be allowed to prescribe medication on digital prescription pads. With the barcoding of medicine strips, fake medicines will also disappear.

Optimise resource utilisation: Digitisation has disrupted every industry. For instance, Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular digital media owner, creates no content. Similarly, the world’s largest healthcare provider will have no beds because it’s going to be a Healthapp.

Source: This post is based on the following articles “When Digital Meets Health” published in TOI on 27th Sep 2021.