Chitrang Dalal, AVP, Product Management, Credihealth

The Indian healthcare sector has so far had a conservative approach towards adopting IT and telecom solutions. However, of late, it has increased its uptake of information and communications technology (ICT), realising its potential in delivering better healthcare. Going forward, m-health, telemedicine and the increased adoption of big data will help in extending healthcare services to remote pockets of the country. Senior executives of enterprises operating in this space talk about the emerging IT trends in healthcare, the status of technology adoption and the future outlook…

What role do ICT solutions play in the healthcare industry? What are some of the ICT initiatives undertaken by your organisation?

With the advent of ICT, the healthcare industry is heading towards remote diagnosis and telemedicine, which is where internet of things (IoT) will come into the picture. Credihealth is moving steadfastly towards making healthcare more accessible and transparent with the help of ICT. To this end, it has built three robust platforms, which are as following….

  • CrediCommunity: Get personalised and detailed answers to all your health questions by verified doctors and medical experts for free. We strive towards making CrediCommunity the biggest healthcare portal where patients and doctors can connect and interact.
  • Video consult platform: With the spread of the internet, we are working towards making healthcare accessible to the masses. We are providing patients with alternatives to traditional consultations. Video consult ensures a convenient and seamless online experience. It helps skip the waiting room hassles, thereby saving time, effort and money, and enables people to avail of online consultations anytime from anywhere.
  • CSC program: With a strong ­commit­ment to simplifying access to healthcare through mobile tech­nologies, Credi­­health has tied up with the Ministry of Electronics and In­for­­mation Technology to deliver its on­­li­ne services through 250,000 common servi­ces ­centres (CSCs) across 16,000 pin codes.

How are the telemedicine and m-health segm­ents expected to evolve in the Indian market?

M-health is set to play a very big role in the wellness segment. Wellness applications such as steps tracker, heartbeat tracker, calories burnt and sleep patterns have started to gain traction in the m-health domain. As people adapt themselves to the online healthcare platforms, m-health and m-wellness innovators ought to show us the future – a future where we are all connected to the entire healthcare value chain right from diagnosis and consultations to treatment and wellness through our mobile phones. Moreover, the deployment of m-health in the actual treatment process will become significant with remote diagnosis, IoT and telemedicine finding enough penetration and acceptance in the market. Meanwhile, video, tele, e-mail, SMS and chat-based con­sultations are going to grow tremendously in 2018. Once people get used to mobile-based consultations, things will move towards video.

What is the scope of big data analytics, cloud and IoT in the healthcare industry?

For big data to play a significant role in the healthcare sector, data has to be ­centra­lised and the nation has to become technologically sound. For example, once health data starts getting linked with Aadhaar, big data can play a major role in the public health sector. A large chunk of the data that gets collated could be used for trend analysis as well as to predict ­disease outbreaks in the country. Hospitals have a huge role to play as they treat a large number of patients and over time, they can collect, preserve and analyse their patient data to draw better and more ­accurate inferences.

At Credihealth, we have served more than 800,000 patients across 700-800 ­hospitals till now. We have accumulated data from each of these customers, which can be used to guide hospitals on various aspects such as the demographic breakup of their audience and the most common ailments, among others. Further, we accumulate and collate feedback from our pati­ ents. This helps new patients make more informed and reasonable decisions while choosing their healthcare specialist.

“Video, e-mail, SMS and chatbased consults are going to grow tremendously in 2018.” Chitrang Dalal

What are the key IT and telecom-related challenges faced by healthcare enterprises? How can these be resolved?

From the perspective of hospitals, they have a number of independent systems that are not well integrated and efficient. Therefore, integrating all of these systems, I believe, is a major challenge for hospitals.

From the perspective of healthcare start-ups, hospitals systems and technologies are lagging behind tremendously. As per start-ups, hospitals have a traditional and rigid method of approaching IT and telecom-related challenges. Therefore, ad­vancements in the field of IT by start-ups are going to take time to get implemented. For instance, even if a start-up wants to bring in a blockchain-based feedback system, a hospital may take time to adopt it.

What are the key technology trends likely to be witnessed by the healthcare industry in the next few years?

At first, from the patients’ perspective, a technology trend based on blockchain or the decentralised availability of information in the healthcare domain such as doctor information, feedback, reviews and consultation fees can help build the much-needed trust and credibility in the sector. Second, remote diagnosis and the adoption of telemedicine are expected to pick up. Third, access to information will be personalised and the recommendations will be based on a person’s information.