Healthcare has evolved tremendously in the last two decades. From healthcare delivery to new clinical research, the internet has found its utility in almost every area of medical science, giving birth to the concept of ‘Digital Health’, integrating doctors, patients and other stakeholders like insurance companies, seamlessly on a single platform.

Digital healthcare has rapidly emerged as a solution to the problem of supply falling short of demand in countries like India, but its success is highly dependent on penetration of the internet.

Digital health is not just limited to doctors providing consultation over telephone or video call, but also includes maintaining digital health records for treatment continuity, integrating data from wearable devices and mobile applications for monitoring and reporting critical updates directly to the caregiver and choosing the most suitable treatment based on an AI-enabled clinical research module.

AI&ML (Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning) capabilities in digital healthcare have equipped providers to deliver customisable treatment and services directly to patients’ home, after analysing plethora of use cases fed in to the clinical R&D systems on a daily basis.

COVID-19 and the emergence of telemedicine

COVID-19 was perhaps the biggest global challenge of this century. It exposed the vulnerability of modern society against the wrath of nature. Well, as the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining, and the pandemic also brought some positives with it. One such positive was the increase in adoption of digital healthcare services.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when healthcare facilities were overwhelmed and unable to manage the sudden demand surge, elederly and chronic care patients were left with no choice but to resort to telemedicine for their regular examinations and follow-ups.

In fact, as announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, e-Sanjeevani, the Union Health Ministry’s telemedicine service, served over 50 lakh patients during pandemic induced lockdown.

Epilogue

The healthcare industry has traditionally been a slow adopter of new technologies primarily due to the risk associated with treatment offered. However, digital technology has rapidly changed the scenario.

https://yourstory.com/2021/10/digital-health-next-frontier-modern-healthcare/amp