The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a pivotal moment, which has brought the world’s health systems to a halt, forcing us to rethink existing healthcare delivery models and embrace the digital transformation of the sector. However, a lot needs to be done to ensure a conducive environment for digital healthcare to flourish, so that the health benefits reach the last mile. By realizing the potential of technology-led solutions, outcomes in critical care pathways can be improved, from virtual care services and remote patient monitoring to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in MedTech tools for diagnosis, actionable insight and therapy For. It can help clinicians make better and more informed decisions, enable personalized diagnosis and treatment, and bring us closer to accurate health.
Holistic Digital Environment: The Future
Creating a strong environment to support effective digital health adoption and delivery is critical. Many factors contribute to its success. Digital health is a collective process and should be guided by a well-designed policy framework that supports local research and innovation in this vein. With an enabling policy ecosystem, data can be used effectively across all principles of health care. This can support the adoption of integrated, patient-centred data forming the foundation of a thriving digital system. A conducive policy environment with adequate training, skills and information sharing is essential, making it easier for healthcare professionals to use digital tools.
Apart from mass adoption of powerful and versatile platform solutions, there is a clear need for clear data sets and uniform governance frameworks that integrate, aggregate and analyze data and convert them into actionable insights. It must also outline effective data privacy and security safeguards, including care to restrict access to digital health records beyond the care provider and patient, to avoid security breaches. Taked will also have 5G that will disrupt patient care continuum, providing diagnostics, therapy and prognosis.
Priority should be given to accelerated investment in research and development to ensure advanced solutions that work in the local context. Furthermore, considering the scale of India’s healthcare challenges, collaboration between the public and private sectors, industry and academia is fundamental to enhancing digital health.
using data-driven care
Today, as the number of technology-based offerings in healthcare continues to grow, their potential use cases and benefits are virtually limitless. Fundamental to the technology are cloud-based integrated platforms that make procedures more efficient, improve clinical workflow and give clinicians a holistic view of patient history. Data stored on the cloud can provide intelligent insights using AI tools and is driving a tectonic shift in early diagnosis and treatment.
In the case of lung cancer, only 18.5% of patients survive five or more years after diagnosis. These are threats that data-based technology will help tackle. With readily available clinical, imaging and genomic data that can be effectively analyzed, the scope of oncology care is expanding. This can help in assessing the likelihood of malignancy and early identification of at-risk patients, leading to better patient outcomes.
Another area where accurate analysis would be useful is cardiovascular disease (CVD). Given that CVDs are rooted in lifestyle, genetics and family history, a predictive model for assessing patient risk would improve patient outcomes. We are already taking advantage of AI to predict heart failure and other serious cardiovascular events in asymptomatic individuals. We should be able to use AI to discover complex relationships in an individual’s lifestyle, genomics and more, to discover the many factors that predispose to CVD.
Advantage Digital
In order to realize the long-term goals of scaling up India’s health care system, it is imperative to adopt and implement a health infrastructure integrated with digital technology. Maximizing the potential of the health care system would require building support infrastructure, skilled talent, robust data aggregation platforms, adoption of analytics tools including AI, and collaboration in key areas such as collaboration.
With an enabling ecosystem, backed by effective policies and advanced innovations for digital healthcare, the promise of digital solutions in healthcare is immense. It is not long before accurate health care comes at the center of every citizen’s health and well-being.
Shravan Subramaniam is the Managing Director of Wipro GE Healthcare.
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