How big data analytics is revolutionizing the healthcare industry, Health News, ET HealthWorld

Healthcare industry took the centre stage over the last 18 months. While on one hand, we saw the significant under-capacity and under-supply in the Indian healthcare ecosystem, on the other hand, we saw significant innovation and behavioural shifts enabling transformative improvement in healthcare access and efficiencies.

Leading healthcare providers saw higher share of virtual outpatient consultations vs. physical consultations during the peak Covid months. Patients have adopted telemedicine apps, doctors have gotten used to technology, and the overall flow of healthcare data has seen a tremendous growth.

Government has rolled out Phase 1 of National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) and has built an ambitious charter to rollout Health IDs for individuals, with est. 1mn IDs generated as of March 2021. Government has developed NDHM Sandbox environment to encourage new-age players and technology companies to drive collaborative scale and innovation.

With rollout of vaccinations and approvals of various molecules for Covid treatment, the data and evidence on effectiveness and safety has been actively sought after, shared and referred to during these times. Researchers, Doctors, Administrators, Patients – everyone has seen the value and interest in the clinical data evidence of various treatment and immunization options and protocols.

We also saw a series of data intelligence use-cases –Covid-19 projection curves, Covid-19 surveillance, social media sentiments, availability of medicines, oxygen, beds, black fungus projections, severity scores, risk assessments, among many other such data models and platforms.

In effect, we are seeing a completely different healthcare world that is now being fuelled with data, intelligence, analytics, prediction models – with strong focus on improvement in population health and clinical outcomes.

In the new era that we are living in, here are the 5 mega big data trends that will change the transform the way care will be sought and provided –

*Digital Health– Digital health is now a part of our lives. Over the last one year, almost everyone’s family has sought remote doctor advice and consultation. A large portion of the population even subscribed to long-term digital and remote care programs. From online consultation to ordering medicines online to booking diagnostic tests through mobile and web platforms, digital health is going to become a significant (if not 100%) part of our lives.

*Data driven Clinical evidence – With newer treatments and vaccinations being approved at a lightning speed, the one thing that can build long-term conviction and certainty of the effectiveness and safety of these drug pathways is a robust real world clinical evidence. Much of this is now possible because of a significant amount of digital data being created/ managed.

*Care Automation – It is evident that India has a significant shortage of healthcare infrastructure, doctors and paramedical staff. Automation of care through intelligent personalized intervention and engagement engines will become part of our lives to enable timely information dissemination, reducing dependence on medical workforce.

*IOT with AI based decision support – Another big trend that will enable reduced dependence on medical workforce is the automation of diagnosis decision support for the medical staff thereby cutting down diagnosis time and enabling larger patient flow per doctor. Given the rising adoption of IOT products, generation of large quantum of datasets, and availability of AI tools and techniques, decision support systems will become core to providing timely and efficient care.

*Data interoperability and healthcare exchanges – With government’s focus on unique Health IDs under the NDHM program, and a clearly established need for digital data records in the current pandemic, it is a matter of time before all the healthcare providers and enterprises will join the NDHM mission to make data seamlessly available to patients from across providers and technology systems

Healthcare is seeing all the supporting forces to see a transformative change – change in behaviours of patients and doctors, rise in data generation, and investments in innovative data and care models. The future of healthcare is now bound by our own imagination.

Akansh Khurana is the founder and CEO and Co-founder, THB

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