” The nearest specialty hospital was 300 kms away. By the time the patient was taken there, it was too late for the doctors to do anything”. Such statements are very common in many Indian villages and remote locations where accessibility to quality medical facilities is very limited. What is the solution to such problems which are so common in the Indian landscape?
The emerging concept of mHealth could be a boon for the Indian healthcare sector.
According to a recent study, Indian users spend 3 hours and 18 minutes on an average everyday with their smart phones, of which one-third of the time is spent on various types of mobile apps like facebook and whatsapp to name a few. Can’t we think of a new dimension of using the same mobile phones to revolutionize the Indian healthcare sector using a concept called mHealth or mobile health? mHealth refers to the use of mobile devices to deliver healthcare related services.
Professor Norton who is the Principal Director of The George Institute for Global Health recently quoted “Mobile phone ownership in India means they have more reach than the health infrastructure, even if individuals don’t have a phone, someone will have in any village.”
Read this blog to understand more about the different aspects of using mobile devices to devise a smarter healthcare system for India.
The healthcare sector in India is facing a plethora of challenges like aging infrastructure, ever increasing population, huge masses of rural population with limited access to high quality medical care and disproportionate number of doctors when compared to the huge population. It is the need of the day to devise techniques to improve the healthcare systems in India. Though there are many long term plans which are in various stages of implementation, the immediate goal should be to reach huge masses with limited investment. Nothing but mobile devices can help in the quick conceptualization of smart healthcare systems which can be mainly attributed to the fact that India has the second largest mobile phone user subscription base in the world with over 900 million mobile phone users. Mobile devices have good penetration even in rural areas where other sophisticated infrastructure components do not exist. This growing ubiquity of mobile phones is a central element in the promise of mobile technologies for healthcare sector in India. Now, let us delve more into the concept of mHealth and its applicability to Indian landscape.
All of us are aware of the concept of eHealth which refers to the use of Information technology to deliver healthcare related services. Various dimensions of eHealth are Healthcare portals, digitization of healthcare records (Electronic Health Records/EHR) and creation of a centralized IT infrastructure for healthcare information access. eHealth has made some level of progress in India with some of the major milestones like National Health portal. Both eHealth and mHealth are closely related features as they offer healthcare related services. For example, many IT applications in the National health portal of late are also available through mobile apps.
The various use cases of mHealth in the Indian context could be the following :
- Healthcare Campaigns : It has been proved using many research studies that SMSes have the capability to create a profound impact in people when compared to other forms of communication like radio, television campaigns, hoardings and brochures. SMS can be sent to large masses of population to educate them about various aspects like disease symptoms, disease management and precautionary measures to be taken to prevent various diseases. In India, a pilot was done to create an awareness about TB (tuberculosis) in certain areas using SMS and the results were very encouraging.
- Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) : It refers to the use of mobile devices to track and report vital body parameters to doctors. This is done with the help of specialized software applications which are installed in mobile devices. These mobile applications monitor body parameters and send them to a database where they can be monitored by a physician or a qualified healthcare assistant. This is specifically useful to handle patients in villages and other remote locations where access to healthcare facilities is difficult and time consuming. According to the National Broadband Plan drafted earlier this year by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the use of remote patient monitoring technology in conjunction with electronic health records (EHR) could save the health care industry $700 billion over the next 15 to 20 years. It is vital to adopt such mobile based technologies in India to deliver quality healthcare to remote locations.
- Field force enablement : Due to acute shortage of doctors, in many rural areas, there are healthcare workers who attend to patients. It is important to make vital health care related information available for these field care workers. Mobile devices provide access to wealth of healthcare related information which are stored in national healthcare portals and other online sources.
- Mobile Telemedicine : Using this technology, remote healthcare workers enter all patient related details and medical records into a healthcare information system. The doctor reviews all the information and uses video conferencing to remotely examine the patient and prescribe necessary medicines. This will go a long way in solving physical access related problems to healthcare service providers which exists in many rural areas. Many mobile telemedicine applications are available in India. However, their use is limited due to lack of popularity and several other constraints which are inherent to Indian society.
Many developing countries are already using mHealth concept extensively to improve their healthcare sector. Following are some of the steps that are required to be taken in India for the success of mHealth initiatives :
- Setting up of a proper digital infrastructure for healthcare systems. This should be the first step to make healthcare related information accessible anytime, anywhere. However, proper care should be taken to ensure the security of patient related data which is stored in these information systems.
- Promoting the mHealth concept by doctors across the country so that it takes off in a big manner.
- Creating proper mHealth related public policies and regulations by the government for the success of mHealth initiatives in India.
- Procuring appropriate permissions from the medical council of India regarding mHealth related medical practices.
- Devising specialized tariff packages by mobile service providers which are customized for mHealth applications.
Though mHealth was included in the national telecom policy in 2011, it has not seen much traction and results. It is our duty as Indian citizens to create awareness about mHealth related services in the villages of india where hundreds of people die regularly due to unavailability of quality healthcare services. What are your thoughts on the use of mobile devices to develop smart healthcare systems in India?
