Doctors have changed, but the industry is far behind.

Last month we closed our admissions to the first-ever course in digital health aimed at doctors and healthcare industry professionals. This demystified our perceptions about doctors, healthcare, and the med-tech industry. This is the ‘Certified Digital Health Professionals’ course launched by the Digital Health Academy in collaboration with IIM-Raipur (https://www.digitalacademy.health/).

When we started this course, we were ‘advised’ by people from the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry professionals that don’t focus on doctors but focus on the pharmaceutical and hospital industry professionals. The reason is that doctors are least interested in technology, don’t want to pay for anything, and want everything free or sponsored, and the Indian pharmaceutical industry is forward-looking. It is preparing for the future and investing in talent. Also, those already into technology will never take this course as they already serve global clients for technology solutions. In fact, a lot of myths were shattered in the two-month-long admission process.

Over 2500 people applied as per IIM, of which 128 candidates were shortlisted, and surprisingly majority were doctors. Some with nearly three to four decades of experience, including veterans with an average experience of 15 years. One doctor with nearly four decades of experience said during the interview, ‘if healthcare is changing now, I need to change as well, and so, this course is my priority’. There was the other extreme as well, a young doctor who wanted to practice online only. If I looked at all the responses from doctors, I was surprised, the majority of applicants were doctors, and they were willing to spend to learn and adopt the technology. Certainly, the perception floated by a section of society that doctors want everything for free and that they are averse to technology was shattered during this admission process.

One of the perceptions we get is that the pharmaceutical industry is forward-looking and spends on human resources development. While people from the pharmaceutical industry did not know about the biggest change happening – Digital Therapeutics and AI -ML- the Indian pharmaceutical companies did not nominate their professionals. However, the MNCs did in good numbers, making it clear that most Indian pharmaceutical companies are still in the ‘trading mentality’ and not investing in their people for winning long term, globally moving up the value chain. This is an area where they will need to invest. If their team members are unaware of the latest developments, how will the companies compete with the world’s best?

Contrary to our understanding that people from the med-tech industry would not join the course, people with a decade of experience in technology wanted to join the course to understand digital health and expand their horizons of thinking about the newer opportunities in digital health.

Nurses, pharmacists, and physiotherapists are the gatekeepers of the healthcare system and play a vital role in healthcare delivery. Their touch with the patients is of critical importance to the healthcare fraternity. Though underpaid, these allied health professionals have invested in doing this course, which is a pleasant surprise as we didn’t expect them to be applying for this course.

Most of the applicants also acknowledged that now, the patients are expecting (given their tech-enabled experience in shopping, banking, etc.) and that the government is pushing for the use of technology through the Ayushman Digital Health Mission. So this digital health revolution is here to stay and has embedded itself into all aspects of care delivery. Doing a structured course in digital health is necessary for upskilling in the digital age.

Overall, this admission process was an eye-opener for people who always carried the myths about how rigid the doctors are and how forward-looking our healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry are. The reality is the opposite of the myths circulated for decades. Technology is changing users’ behaviour, and one thing is clear, the industry is way behind in technology adoption when compared to doctors and other healthcare professionals. It is time that the industry starts investing in its people and puts a strategy for digital health in place else, new age companies will take over the conventional companies, be it pharma or health, and that day is not far; we will see that happening in this decade as Tesla did in the past few years to automobile companies that are over a century old.

?As I say, digital health will not replace doctors or healthcare professionals, but those who use digital health will replace those who don’t use digital health. The conventional ways of delivering care are over!

Dr. Rajendra Pratap Gupta is the Program chair for the Digital Health Course and founder of the Digital Health Academy. He is the former advisor to the Union Health Minister and chairman of the Dynamic Coalition on Digital Health at IGF, United Nations. Tweets@rajendragupta

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