With Covid-19 precipitating a shift to digital healthcare, telemedicine has particularly seen a visibly high uptake across the country. So, even when we, at times, struggled through the pandemic due to the accessibility and availability gaps at various levels, strained resources, and the sheer enormity of the challenge that the pandemic threw at us, the redeeming part was that in parallel, telemedicine and remote consultation, diagnostics, and monitoring were on the ascendancy and have been since. This exemplifies the huge strides that Indian healthcare has taken from the days of the formation of the Telemedicine Society of India in 2001 to the National Health Policy of 2017 envisioning digital health in India to the National Health Stack released by Niti Aayog in 2018 to the launch of the National Digital Health Mission in 2020. In other words, the ideas that were envisaged nearly two decades ago are finally taking shape, redrawing the broader national healthcare landscape in the country.
Telemedicine takes a gigantic leap, patient-customer number says it all
Online consultations, an integral part of telemedicine, have recorded an extraordinary rise in demand since the outbreak of the pandemic. In the immediate aftermath, an online platform reported a 500 per cent jump in online consultations between March and May 2000. And the juggernaut has continued. While tier one and metro cities have traditionally been the biggest catchment areas, tier II and III cities have not remained behind. In fact, according to a recent report published by a digital healthcare platform, online consultations jumped by 87 per cent in tier II and III cities in 2022 on a year on-year basis, while the increase was 75 per cent for metro cities in the same period. By December end last year, eSanjeevani, the government’s free telemedicine service, had clocked 8 crore telemedicine consultations.
Rise in the number of telemedicine service providers & offerings
There has been a proliferation of telemedicine companies and service providers in a matter of a few years. The nature of service or the business models that have been worked out are different for different companies. From digital only to digital-first to hybrid phygital service providers, today established hospitals and healthcare delivery brands have also set up their telemedicine network and services. In addition, India has over 8,000 health-tech startups today, many of which provide telemedicine services, according to Tracxn, a company that tracks startups. While some offer niche and specialised disease care services, some have evolved from the time when they merely booked appointments and maintained digital health records to today when they are bringing out a full-fledged healthcare service portfolio to the Indian healthcare market.
Remarkably enough, many of these startups are primarily focused on bringing quality care to tier II and III cities. A recent survey of healthcare providers and practitioners by Grant Thornton Bharat and the Association of Healthcare Providers India (AHPI) has revealed that 84 per cent of respondents plan to significantly increase their budget on digital solutions in the next 12 months, thereby underlining that the momentum on digital health and telemedicine is likely to continue.
Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) showing promise too
Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) has also shown impressive trends, often as a natural extension or a sub-category of telemedicine. As a country with one of the largest numbers of patients with chronic and lifestyle disorders, an ever growing elderly population, and an increased preference for home care, India is a promising market for RPM services. The continuing appearance of new devices in the market that facilitate remote monitoring while enabling ease of use and easy portability adds to this promise. In addition to traditional tech giants launching smart wearables and other devices, there are Indian companies that are coming up with their own cost effective smart health and fitness tracking devices. At the same time, there are health-tech innovators that offer platform-centric solutions that work by harnessing data thrown up by wearables and devices at the patient’s end in a non-clinical or home setting.
The increased availability of low cost, high-volume cloud storage and computational resources is also helpful in this regard. Using the captured data, some companies are even using AI and ML to generate actionable insights that can aid not only the remotely attending doctor in making appropriate clinical decisions but also the patients in implementing self-care. It has been estimated that the Indian patient monitoring market would grow at a CAGR of 9.4 per cent between 2019 and 2027. With India being deficient in hospital infrastructure and personnel, RPM not only shortens hospital stays but also removes the need for costly readmissions apart from improving patient engagement.
The surge in usage of an array of telemedicine-related devices, equipment & software
In the last few years, there has been increased usage of telemedicine related devices and equipment. Apart from telemedicine carts that typically include monitors, cameras, speakers, and microphones, there are other products such as Patient Assessment Terminals (PAT), clinical assistants, and portable teleclinics, among others, that are seeing continued innovations as well as traction. Also, India is increasingly seeing more traction in terms of EMR and EHR. The EHR market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7 per cent between 2022 and 2030 based on demand from both physical hospitals that also offer telemedicine services and digital-only or digital-first service providers.
Therefore, telemedicine and remote patient monitoring services and related products are set to become more popular from both consumer and business standpoints in the coming years. However, issues such as seamless device and platform integration, integration with EHR systems, billing and payment systems, privacy and confidentiality of health data, etc., would continue to pose challenges. But with the government leading from the front and the private sector participating earnestly, these issues would be suitably addressed through regulations, technological innovations, and increased investments as we move forward.
Views expressed by Raghavendra Goud, Global Chief Executive Officer, Empe Diagnostics
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