Trends in Digital Healthcare
The digital healthcare ecosystem in the country is heterogenous in nature, and as such does not really cater to the seamless transfer of records between entities, or the shifting of a patient from one hospital to another, without compromising of certain elements of their own personal health records. With a population of over 1.5 billion (unofficial estimates suggest more), to expect the same level of awareness and literacy, is not the prudent thing to do. In view of this disparity (social, economic, both), the government has come up with several schemes which allow specialist medical care to be accessible to the last mile, by way of digital delivery of healthcare services.
With the introduction of health and wellness centers, with non-conventional medical set-ups (inclusion of synchronous/ asynchronous telemedicine consults), we have witnessed the diaspora gaining access to better healthcare services, overcoming the physical barriers. While this transition comes with its own challenges, related to the connectivity and availability of specialists, the main issue generated out of the consumption of huge volumes of personal and sensitive personal data.
Much like the financial sector in the country, the healthcare ministry/ departments brough it onto themselves to ensure that there is some level of regulation and governance concerning healthcare, vis a vis data privacy. In doing so, the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, relied upon the backbone which was introduced under the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM), and we witnessed the introduction of the NDHM Health Data Management Policy. Additionally, with the incidence of the pandemic, the government released the Telemedicine Practice Guidelines – 2022, as part of the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002. Separately, in line with the NDHM, last year, the draft Health Data Retention Policy was circulated for the purposes of compliance with expected data privacy legislation.
Last year also witnessed another important milestone, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched e-RUPI, whereby healthcare became the forerunner in accepting it as a valid mode of payment settlement. With the availability of vaccines for Covid-19, e-RUPI was made available for corporates, entities to afford any beneficiary to be able to make payment for the jab, by way of preloaded money in their e-RUPI wallet. This allowed people with non-smart phones, to be able to avail this service, by way of a unique code being delivered to them on their devices, and it promoted offline mode of financial transactions to be made.
With the introduction of these regulatory frameworks, these past couple of years have also witnessed a greater reliance on mobile applications/ websites for teleconsultation, purchase and delivery of drugs and medical devices, at-home diagnostic services, and lifestyle disease support.
In addition to this, recognition of these aspects of healthcare delivery under the consumer protection laws, has further strengthened the legal support that may be afforded to the consumers. This not only allows the consumers to be able to enforce their own rights, but also ensures that the digital healthcare service providers (including at-home diagnostics, online pharmacies) be careful about the systems that they are implementing for the protection of consumer data and security of the platform per se.
The trend has now been set for consumer becoming more aware of the concept of medical support on a “womb to tomb” basis. It is with certainty, that we now say that digital healthcare is the way forward.