Reaching the Unreached in India through Digitized Healthcare The healthcare sector which has witnessed a multitude of welcome reforms and improved healthcare outlays in recent years that could feasibly transform the country into a healthcare haven

By Dr. Atish Laddad

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Digital renovation in Indian child healthcare sector is acquiring an important space due to ease of accessibility, proficiency and affordability to tackle the treatment turmoil's faced by parents and the children especially in India's lesser developed areas.

In the current times, the electronic child healthcare market in Tier II and Tier III cities is showing remarkable growth prospects. Digitalization of healthcare in developing areas is nothing but the "need of the hour' rather than being a fancy medical trend. For permitting an effectual, appropriate and seamless child healthcare facilities, the only way is to embrace digital podiums through smartphones, wearable and other devices. Going paperless by adopting digital mediums is the foremost way to bridge the gap between the demand and supply of the healthcare system in these cities. Digitization of pediatric healthcare is the answer to the tedious medical appointments and unaffordable medical expenses and is showing a stable user-friendliness not just in the urban cites but also in tier-II, tier-III and even in the distant parts of the country.

Opportunities that Lie in the Mobile Child Healthcare Segment in India –

The Indian child healthcare segment in modern times has realized its massive growth potential. The government's continuous digital initiatives and various infrastructural investments have nothing but offered more opportunities in the mobile childcare zone. These digital drivers coupled with a rising economy, have prepared us for a more highly-fetching and digitalized India covering even the far-off and remotest sectors. These successive government efforts and initiatives have been able to offer child healthcare policy a perceptible direction, something which is designed to possibly advance the progress of public health systems across the country.

So how exactly does mobile technology fit in the segment of child healthcare and how will it help the sector? Delivering quality healthcare and information through the medium of mobile phones is a great way to deliver all-inclusive healthcare services which was a distant dream earlier. By enabling face-to-face communications with medical practitioners, this digital innovation acts as an empowering service and offers a podium for the interchange of data and facilities amongst patients and healthcare experts through mobile applications, e-health podiums and telemedicine facilities. This is chiefly advantageous to developing and emerging countries such as India, which initially lacked appropriate healthcare infrastructure and trained workforce. Rural and semi-urban areas are home to more than sixty percent of the Indian population. Each district healthcare centre and state-run village medical clinic can work as a centre providing mobile health-tech solutions through either self-analytic, tech-enabled screens, or a facility for video consultation that is linked via the internet to well-armed amenities, even hundreds of miles away. This can aid in bridging the gap between the urban and rural delivery system, thus allowing patients to save on finances and commute and yet benefit from the best possible medical aid and consultation.

Realizing this though will need effective partnerships between the public and private sector and highly functional CSR agendas by hospitals, healthcare organizations and health-tech companies. The private sector, which presently accounts for about seventy percent of the total child healthcare outflow in the country, must make additional room for improved and more inexpensive healthcare skills. This also calls for a requirement to make health-care specialists more technically skilful, inspiring them to accept mobile-health for the purpose of diagnosis as well as for follow-up consultations and remaining in touch with patients. The entire healthcare sector being highly regulated, it's very significant for the government to play its part by executing mobile health specific strategies and take all necessary steps to address various regulatory ambiguities. The accountability of each stakeholder in an ecology that encompasses clinicians, healthcare providers, doctors, experts, practitioners, IT service providers and data analysts – all of whom have an important role to play in the service distribution network – also need to be clearly delineated. Doing so will offer a robust public push to escalate operations and drive wide-spread acceptance for mobile-based healthcare solutions.

The budding child healthcare business model in India will lead to a restored distribution of facilities to patients, as long as the required strategies and guidelines are introduced and applied to safeguard the protection of consumers.

Comprehending the significance of implementing a localized method, data-driven health approaches are offering personalized healthcare services to even the unreachable citizens residing in remote parts of India. Medical health apps that safeguard the innate child health requirements by offering expert consultation and facilities for telemedicine offer patients the convenience of accessing it in one go. Considering these advancements, India undoubtedly has the determination and talent to become a worldwide leader in digital child healthcare, reinforcing its ecology through a gamut of digital tools. The advantages electronic healthcare offers to patients are limitless----

Equipped with Accessibility

Digitalizing child health records will facilitate the move in Indian healthcare system, in Tier II and III cities allowing patients to become more familiar with their queries. The patients from rural areas are very ignorant about health information like the proper treatment for a particular ailment. The perception of digital health will work best to make this section of people apprehend the value of health by divulging medically authentic healthcare data that comes right from well-skilled doctors and paediatricians. Although the Tier III patients are not tech-savvy and always prefer consulting an expert without burning a hole in their pockets, these effective and easy-to-handle health apps will leave no stones unturned in offering them with accurate health assistance. In India, lifestyle treatment and precautionary healthcare are on the rise and "home healthcare services' is definitely a most preferred interactive and linked tool for child health counselling. India in current times has marked a significant acceptability rate, with people in the remote areas steadily getting access to the digital healthcare apps monitoring child well-being.

Overpowering Infrastructure Challenges

To set forth the analytics and algorithms of healthcare, infrastructural consistency is a must for supreme technological growth. To lessen organizational burdens and paperwork, steady internet connectivity should be established for users to smoothly use healthcare apps and websites. In this age of technology and prognostic analytics, there surely had to be an improved way of endowing people to opt for a modified assistance for a unified time management. Looking at the user's point of view, electronic childcare is definitely the greatest proponent in the healthcare scenario that allows consumers to access doctors online receive recommended lab tests done without any troubles of stepping out and carry on consultation upon automatic report sharing with pediatric experts. This transition has brought about a rising upwardly mobile-friendly class in these developing cities.

Empowered Users

The tradition of digital healthcare is booming in India. To evade the tiring serpentine queues, the new-age and enabled users are fluctuating their choice towards staying fit with digital support and thus are setting free their child healthcare worries.

Rural India has ample amount of opportunities to grow in terms of digitized healthcare for children. The Government of India has been actively working towards grasping the prospects to help India grow its Digitized healthcare sector, which has witnessed a multitude of welcome reforms and improved healthcare outlays in recent years that could feasibly transform the country into a healthcare haven.

Dr. Atish Laddad

Pediatrician and Founder Member, The Pediatric Network

Dr. Atish Laddad, Pediatrician and Founder Member, The Pediatric Network.

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