Remote HealthCare- The answer to insufficient healthcare delivery!

India is the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people and the most populous democracy in the world. But the healthcare needs of this population are highly underserved with only 2.31 billion physician interactions taking place against the 6.5 billion physician interactions required per year. The urban regions in India have numerous private hospitals and clinics which provide quality healthcare. These centres have better doctors, access to preventive medicine, and quality clinics. On the other hand a staggering 70% of the population still lives in rural areas and has no or limited access to hospitals and clinics.

This mismatch demands a radical change in the mode of Health care delivery which can only be achieved by use of modern communication technologies. 'Remote Healthcare' is the augmented use of technology to enable consultation and monitoring of patients outside of conventional clinical settings, thereby increasing access to healthcare and decreasing healthcare delivery costs. Remote Healthcare is set to disrupt the normal mode of healthcare delivery, largely driven by the two fold need for access & convenience in both urban and rural centres in India.

Remote healthcare is being driven by commensurate developments in the IT & Medtech ecosystem with Government initiatives playing a role of an enabler. With the paradigm shift,Venture Capital firms now are readily funding small and medium size start-ups especially in “e” Space. Remote healthcare aka eHealth is now set to change the face of healthcare delivery in India. The growing acceptability of e-Products has resulted in private hospitals starting or partnering with Remote Healthcare teams ,to add revenue by utilizing their spare capacity. This has encouraged the healthcare providers to provide health care Remotely.

Remote healthcare has been witness to the following developments:

• Online Appointment Booking – enables a user located anywhere to go through the profile of a Doctor and to book a time slot to go visit him at the Hospital 

• Tele-consultation - enables a patient to connect to and consult a Doctor of his choice for his health related problem online many a times 24X7 

• Tele-Emergency - helps the connected centres located in remote areas to get connected to a speciality hospital. The Emergency specialists of this speciality hospital then help stabilize the patient virtually and assist the local HealthCare Provider in delivering appropriate healthcare service.

• Tele-ICU/e-ICU - helps the connected centres located to get connected to a Intensive Care Specialist stationed at command centre at Tertiary care hospital. The Intensive Care Specialist of this speciality hospital then monitors the patient's condition virtually and may assist the primary care centre physicians in taking the right care of the patient's health. 

• Point of care testing - usually involves a simple to use device that can screen the patient for common health disorders and then transfers the data generated to a central repository from where the patient's condition can be tracked remotely by 24X7 Medical Response Centres

• e-Health records management - acts as a central repository of subscriber's health care data remotely accessible by the patient or by the health care provider from anywhere to ensure that the subscribers need not carry an entire library worth of lab reports and past prescriptions when going to visit a doctor

We at Apollo Hospitals have been the torch bearer in remote Healthcare space in India and emerging economies and an inspiration to the developed countries.