We’ve already seen how the current healthcare system in India is working. Even after being the second most populated nation in the world, we are far behind in producing enough manpower required to cater to the rising needs of the healthcare industry.
That is, the doctor-patient ratio in the country is not too pleasing. Let’s shed more light on the prevalent healthcare system in India and why healthcare needs innovation across the nation.
Defining healthcare innovation
Healthcare innovation also represents the implementation of new or significantly improved products, services, or processes. Moreover, it can also imply new organizational methods, methods of service delivery, ways to improve customer relations, and novel approaches to marketing.
When it comes to classifying innovation on the basis of its impact on shareholders, there are namely two categories – disruptive and non-disruptive.
Non-disruptive healthcare innovation improves something that already exists, supporting the realization of new incremental opportunities or solves known issues. While disruptive healthcare innovations disrupt old systems, creating new market constituents and adding value to new opportunities.
As far as healthcare is concerned, it is predicted that disruptive innovation is all set to take over in the next couple of decades.
Need for healthcare innovation
Needless to say, healthcare in India has been in deep introspection for quite some time now. Although the Supreme Court has quoted healthcare to be a fundamental right under Article 21, apparently, not everyone in the country is able to make the most of their right.
Taking a deeper look at the present scenario of the healthcare system in India in numbers, ironically, we are lagging far behind. In India, there is 1 government allopathy specialist for every 10,000 people, 1 government hospital bed for every 2,000 people and 1 state-run hospital for every 90,300 people.
If industry experts are to be believed, we would not need a contagious outbreak for our existing public health system to collapse. It is an everyday matter now that the patients are forced to share beds and medical specialists are being overworked. In other words, the current situation suggests that healthcare needs innovation.
The steady growth of healthcare innovation
Either way, technology has always been a very important aspect of healthcare innovation not only in the present times but will be in the future as well. However, experts predict that the pace of technology-driven healthcare innovation may be a bit different. The International Data Association has predicted the following:
- More than 65% of transactions with healthcare organizations will require them to develop comprehensive strategies for a consistent healthcare delivery experience across the web, mobile, and telephonic channels.
- The need to manage patients with chronic health conditions will lead to 70% of healthcare organizations to invest in consumer-friendly mobile apps, wearables, health monitoring tools, and virtual care. That means the demand for big data and analytics would certainly increase.
- BigData would be the most eyed technology with more than 50% of organizations opting for it. BigData would be useful for reducing the need for specially trained resources to support big data projects.
Disruptive innovation – need of the hour
In the past few decades, a majority of innovation in healthcare has been the core of the development of new diagnostic procedures, drugs, medical devices, and therapies.
These modern tactics include new pharmaceutical agents and novel procedures for more precise diagnostic scanners. Such technological advancements have also managed to produce a few stunning outcomes.
In the long run, the emphasis on innovation in healthcare will strengthen rapidly and bring about considerable transformation in crucial areas of the industry. Domains such as prevention, more personalized care as per the patient’s preferences and genetics, more efficient and technology-powered care models along with integrated organizational designs and add-on creative technological options for superior healthcare delivery.
The takeaway
Currently, we are in an exciting phase of healthcare innovation, still, Indian healthcare needs innovation, that too disruptive — to create a new market, disrupt the existing status quo, and displace established incumbents
Moreover, industry experts also suggest that just virtual transformations would not prove that beneficial. Now is the time we need actions and self-sufficient campaigns to deliver superior healthcare offerings to rural India as well.
