DIGITAL HEALTH – AN INTEGRAL PART OF HEALTHCARE

Telehealth, telemedicine, digital health and e-Health may sound familiar. Put simply, they all revolve around the integration of technology with healthcare in order to improve access, effectiveness and efficiency. The healthcare industry is one of the most exciting areas for emerging technologies. With the emergence of 5G, IoT services and its applications, the healthcare industry is ready to become more connected and readily available. 

Telehealth and telemedicine are two interrelated modern healthcare terms that are often used interchangeably. Telemedicine is an approach of medicine whereby technology and information are used to deliver or support long-distance care. In layman terms, this refers to a medical practice in which the healthcare professional in one location uses the internet, mobile or other telecommunication technologies to examine, diagnose and treat a patient located offsite.

Telehealth, on the other hand, encompasses all methods, means, and avenues for enhancing public health, medical education and healthcare support and delivery using telecommunication technologies. In other words, this refers to a collection of services, telecommunication technologies, and electronics used to provide or support long-distance healthcare.

Telemedicine is actually a subset of telehealth, which is a broader term which covers a wider scope of long-distance healthcare service. In practice, telemedicine often has to do specifically with the clinical or diagnostic services offered by doctors for at-a-distance patients. Most telehealth services are non-clinical in nature.

Although both fields of healthcare make use of the latest technologies like Electronic Health Records (EHRs), remote patient monitoring, wireless health technologies, video conferencing, etc., the key difference lies in the scope.

In most cases, telemedicine solutions are designed for remote specialist/physician consultation, medication adherence, managing chronic conditions, and follow-up visits. Telehealth technology, on its end, is frequently used for non-diagnostic/non-clinical services like offering continuing medical education, managing doctor’s schedules, administrative meetings, and medical training.

Of course, there are many areas of overlap and intersection between the two emerging concepts in modern medicine.

COVID has fast tracked the adoption of digital health. Digital health standards are a must have for every country to ensure patient privacy, safety and quality of care.

NABH Digital Health Standards will act as a catalyst in the faster adoption telemedicine and Telehealth

India is aiming to be the first country to have comprehensive Digital Health Accreditation standards before 2020 ends as per Prof. Rajendra Pratap Gupta, Chairman – Drafting Committee, National Digital Health Standards (NDHS), and National Board for Hospitals and Healthcare (NABH). India would be the first country in the global map to have NDHS and start accrediting digital health providers by 2021.

The need for a national digital health framework will be an extension of National Health Policy of 2017. The NABH Digital Health Standards aims to consider all relevant aspects of the application of patient interfacing technologies across the continuum of care applicable for outpatient, inpatient, and remote patient monitoring. The focus will be on keeping the personal data confidential to ensure the safety of the patients’ healthcare records.

AIOCD has written to PM recently requesting strong privacy of Health Data Management Policy as lack of privacy can cause serious harm to institutions and individuals. The association in principle supports the digitalization of health but are concerned pertaining to data theft of our citizens as per General Secretary Mr Rajiv Singhal. It should not jeopardize patient -doctor-pharmacist confidentiality. The concerns are correct as policy will involve collection of biometric and medical records and such digital data is susceptible to hacking and unauthorized access. The defination of sensitive personal data must be narrowed down

The committee nominated by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), NITI Aayog, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), Drugs Controller General of India (DGCI) and sectoral leaders from the private sector are working amidst pandemic and lockdown to fast track the process. India will be the first country to have to start accrediting digital health providers.

Once the policy is implemented it shall have far reaching consequences on the provisions of healthcare services & existing statutory framework ie Indian Medical Council Act 1956, Drugs &Cosmetic Act 1956, Drugs &Cosmetic act 1940,Pharmacy Act 1948 as per a report in Express Healthcare.

The policy will cover entire gamut of activities under digital health including the doctors, hospitals , medical devices, software’s, Artificial Intelligence (AI) etc adopting the ‘systems approach’ for the standards with a possibility for a wider adoption of these standard.

Digital health platforms, telemedicine shall be integral to healthcare in post-COVID world

This behavioral change is here to stay.

This trend will further accelerate the growth of telemedicine in India. With telemedicine, everyone can access quality healthcare at ease, irrespective of geographical barriers.

India has a shortage of around 600K doctors and two million nurses. RMP accessibility, as per the WHO standards, has been a persistent problem for the Indian healthcare sector. The country has a basic need for an increased number of qualified medical doctors with only one government doctor for every 10,189 people. It also needs an additional 18.8 million ancillary workers like nurses and technicians for the operation theatre, radiology and dialysis to meet the growing demand for accessible healthcare. Telemedicine is healing patients and doctors alike and therefore, is set to have a hugely positive impact on our healthcare system.

Back in 2019, the Indian telemedicine market was predicted to reach $32 million by 2020 and now it is expected to cross $5.5 billion by 2025 with a CAGR of 31 per cent. Its future will not be limited to remote consulting, but it has a variety of applications in patient care, education, research, administration and public health.

The extended lockdown and quarantine regulations have only acted as a catalyst in the growth of telehealth apps, which has registered a growth of over 178 per cent in the remote consultations. The improved internet connectivity has also enabled people from Tier 2 and 3 areas to easily access tele consultation.

In the wake of the Covid-19, the government has been promoting telemedicine across the country. Government has launched the Aarogya Setu Mitr app that offers free telemedicine and consultation services for coronavirus-related inquiries. The app was launched in collaboration with Tata Bridgital Health, Swasth Foundation, Project StepOne and Tech Mahindra’s healthcare brand Connectsense Telehealth to offer teleconsultation services form verified doctors. Recently for senior citizens free Teleconsulting scheme has been launched under central government

(Refer website www.esanjeevaniopd.in )

One has to be prepared for the new normal & stay ahead of the curve in terms of customer satisfaction

The tech platforms and data-based decision making should bring in higher order of customer experience and satisfaction. . As the patients shift their healthcare-related dependencies from the physical to the virtual world, quality and trust will in the digital healthcare delivery services will play a critical role. Hospitals like AHEL have re-focused on other revenue plays like pharmacies, diagnostics etc. In fact, since patients cannot come to the hospital/doctor/pharmacy, these facilities have gone to the patient through tele-consultations and omni-channel health platforms.

Telemedicine is one solution that will bridge this gap of rural and urban to a certain level and decrease the time of medical staff consumed in travel to address patient needs. The solution providers, with their portfolio of IoT solutions and services would also be in a position to help achieve NABH goals.

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has asked insurance companies to process insurance claims for telemedicine consultations while following the terms and conditions of medical insurance policies. Telemedicine is considered under out-of-the-pocket expenses. Anyone taking telemedicine consultation from a doctor will be allowed to claim the expenses under a health insurance policy provided their policy covers OPD expenses.

Advantages of Telemedicine

There are a myriad of advantages to telemedicine, and here are the top ones:

·        Increased Access to Healthcare

·        Enhances Quality of Health Service Delivery and Patient Care

·        Helps Curb Rising Healthcare Costs

·        (iv)Boosts Patient Satisfaction and Engagement

·        Enhances Physician Satisfaction

Disadvantages of Telemedicine

·        Dealing with Reimbursement, Payment and Policy Changes can be Difficult

·        Care Continuity Problems.

·        Cost and Availability.

·        Significant reduction in patient-doctor in-person interaction.

·        Issues with care continuity.

·        Lack of proper equipment.

·        Technical training limitations

·        Not immune to security and privacy risks

·        Impending lawsuits that might arise from misdiagnosis, neglect.

Hence Telemedicine is not without challenges and downsides. The biggest risk is cybersecurity issues, followed by cost and availability, as well as reimbursement problems.

ROBOTS IN HEALTHCARE – AS FRONTLINE WARIORS

Given the exponential rate of development in technology, we are bound to see more practical examples of technology aimed at helping people to fight this global crisis. Having robots in the healthcare setting sounds like overly futuristic, sci-fi scenarios to many, but they are realities in our present times.

In fact, they might be best suited to fight lethal infectious diseases as they are impervious to cross-infections, unlike human medical professionals.

·        In China, e-commerce giant JD.com deployed self-driving robots to deliver medical goods to Wuhan.

·        The startup Shanghai TMIRob sent robots to disinfect wards, intensive care units and operating rooms in hospitals in the city.

·         Back in January, doctors in a U.S. hospital used a robot to assist them to take vitals of a patient infected with the COVID-19 virus so as to minimize exposure. They could communicate via a screen on the robot and the latter also had a stethoscope to take the patient’s vitals.

·        Robots used to monitor recovering stroke patients are being repurposed in Thailand to measure patients’ fevers and allow physicians to communicate with patients via video call.

·         Four hospitals in Bangkok have adopted the solution which has an undeniably cool nickname based on its appearance: ninja robots.

·        The Belgian robotics company ZoraBots is also pitching in. Belgium issued a ban on visits to elderly people’s homes so as to break the transmission chain. ZoraBots provided their robots, free of charge, to these care centers so that they can keep contact with their close ones remotely.

Medical robotics experts believe that the considerable contribution of robots during this pandemic should serve as a wake-up call to invest more in them. This way we can better prepare for the next outbreak.

Digital Health is no more an option, it is the only option. In time to come there will be no ‘digital health’, it will just be ‘health’ and ‘digital’ will be an integral part of healthcare. The future of telemedicine is brighter than ever. It is expected that the market will grow at a fast pace on the back of continued adoption, increased technology, and enactment of more favorable regulations.

Source : Secondary Research