The Complex Landscape of Indian Healthcare: Challenges and Solutions

Indian healthcare services are known to be cheap, accessible, flexible and well, unfairly distributed amongst the urban and rural sections of the society. With the industry being expected to reach over $610 billion by 2026 and the rapid increase of market size due to the ever increasing demand for specialized yet affordable healthcare facilities, the currently existing healthcare management system is complex and inefficient. Such a complicated system cannot sustain in an economy like ours where more than two-thirds of the population lives in rural areas and is devoid of even the basic medical amenities.?

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the doctor to patient ratio in India is 1:834, while the standard lies at 1:1000 and nearly 25% of allopathy doctors are specialized medical practitioners. What’s clear by this is that the availability of medical professions is not so much of a challenge, their non-uniform distribution among the sections of the society is. And even in urban areas the escalating costs of healthcare services remains one of the most significant challenges in the healthcare industry. The growing expenses imply financial strain, deferred medical treatment, debt and bankruptcy for the consumers while the providers suffer with health equity focus, patient access, quality of care and overburdened healthcare systems.

The educated strata of the society also show an increased interest and demand for personalized care. With easy access to vast amounts of medical information online, patients are now more informed and empowered than ever before.For example, a family where both the parents work jobs and have kids that go to school would prefer all their medical records on a simple application, with not just personal history and fitness tracking but also the entire family’s records and finances. They no longer passively accept treatment options but actively seek healthcare solutions that cater to their unique needs and preferences. Such demand can only be fulfilled by a more intricate approach to diagnosis and treatment, which is exactly what the ME application can bring to their fingertips. While one may think personalized care can yield better outcomes, it can also be expensive. The ME app offers all these features with an addition of? health insurance management promising affordability and access for all patients, regardless of their economic status.

Creating such a personalized healthcare module would require maintenance of the medical records and contact details of the patients, appointment tracking, insurance information and medical finances which is neither a simple nor easy venture. That is where Hospital Management Systems (HMS) were introduced to solve the complications coming from managing all the paperwork of every patient associated with the various departments of hospitalization with confidentiality. Medoc’s Hospital+ is a HMS which provides the ability to manage all the paperwork in one place, reducing the work of staff in arranging and analyzing the paperwork of the patients. It aims at providing a platform to organize patient data, finances, pharmaceutical inventories, workforce tracking and to create transparency in healthcare as an ?inexpensive and efficient digital Hospital Management System which integrates administrative, clinical, and operational processes to optimize hospital efficiency, while the DocAssist application facilitates complete assistance to your medical staff to make them more efficient and enable seamless communication between doctors and patients enabling coordinated patient care and prescription tracking.?

Effective healthcare requires comprehensive management across various management domains, including clinical, financial, laboratory, inpatient and outpatient, operation theater, materials, nursing, pharmaceuticals, radiology, and pathology lab, among others. But do the existing EHR (Electronic Healthcare Record) systems check all the boxes? Medoc+ platform enhances connectivity between nurses, supporting paramedics and handling pharmacy inventory and management for efficient medication management ensuring timely and accurate medication delivery.?

As we mentioned above the disparity in the access of healthcare is where the biggest challenge lies, and while all the other issues like financial complexity and demand for personalized care can get obviously tackled by the existence of Medoc’s Healthcare Ecosystem, one might ask how can we work to create equality for the huge rural population that probably does not even have access to internet and mobile phones? The Primary and Community Health centers cover most of the rural areas in India and the deployment of H+ and DocAssist in the said hospitals can help bring the specialized care to those regions through video consultations and referring. The Medcard can be a gateway to comprehensive healthcare access even without a smartphone or internet connection designed to bridge the gap for those without access to technology. ME Card utilizes QR and NFC technology to replicate the features of the ME App, providing a personalized healthcare identity and access to vital medical information anytime, anywhere, with just a scan or tap.?

We as a country already have all the human resources and infrastructure required to make us one of the best healthcare providers in the world, all we require is a nationwide management system that can bridge the gaps and ease the complexity of paperwork in this age of digitalization. Medoc brings you exactly that!

Credits: Sneha Kumar