Shahid Akhter, editor, ETHealthworld, spoke to Shyatto Raha, Founder and CEO, MyHealthcare to get his views on the impact of digitalization in healthcare.
How is digitalization bringing a change in the healthcare ecosystem ?
Digitisation and penetration of mobile internet are going to be game changers for the Indian healthcare industry. Digital health solutions will help enhance access to healthcare services for patients. The significant benefit is the opportunity of healthcare ecosystems to serve all health needs for a customer, be it consult, pharmacy delivery, diagnostics at home, home healthcare and remote patient monitoring.
Start-ups are the drivers in the digital healthcare evolution, in recent years tech giants such as Google, Apple, Samsung and others are pushing a whole new gamut of digital health applications for monitoring heart rates, ECG, blood oxygenation, blood pressure, pulse rate and blood sugar levels.
The digitisation of health records will help immensely in the accuracy of diagnosis, building patient longitudinal history, reduce medical administration errors and offer timely warnings, alerts to prevent severe medical crises.
How important is the role of technology in driving digital healthcare?
Unfortunately, the healthcare sector in India has been one of the slowest adopters of digital technology and digital innovation in delivery of care. Legacy operating issues, infrastructure hurdles and the significant challenge of change management have been the key constraints. The Covid 19 pandemic has been a catalyst to push through the much needed behavioural change by both patients and doctors – it has been a catalyst in pushing adoption of telemedicine, digital EMR platforms. The adoption of new-age technology in digital innovations has further strengthened the healthcare delivery channels. Several healthcare organisations and doctors are embracing the use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in adding value to the quality of care delivered to their patients. The tools integrated with AI help transform the healthcare delivery model by automating the everyday processes in the sector and providing improved patient outcomes.
What is the idea behind MyHealthcare?
India ranks 145 among 195 countries in terms of quality and accessibility of healthcare. The second challenge we face is lack of meaningful patient information, which leads to diagnosis errors or increases the timeline for accurate diagnosis.
MyHealthcare provides an effective digital healthcare ecosystem, which enhances the access of healthcare delivery, with a vision to provide quality healthcare for all. MyHealthcare is a digital healthcare ecosystem that works with hospitals, its doctors, caregivers and enhances the patient care continuum processes. The core focus of MyHealthcare is to bridge the healthcare delivery gap using a data driven care process. As a service offering MyHealthcare is designed to assist hospitals and clinics in building out their patient engagement and scaling their digital healthcare roadmap.
MyHealthcare has partnered with leading hospitals and healthcare institutions in building a meaningful and effective healthcare ecosystem, mapping best practices in clinical treatment and integrating into the various technology platforms of a hospital to help deliver a 360-degree care to its patients from anywhere and at all times.
The company manages the healthcare needs of over 20 million patients today, across 57+ hospitals. They currently serve the entire Fortis Group, Max Hospital Group, BLK Super Speciality, PSRI Super Speciality, Primus Super Speciality, Vimhans Nayati Hospital, Aakash Healthcare, Nanavati Hospital, Breach Candy Hospital, Woodlands Multi Speciality, Neotia Healthcare Group and many more.
