| | February 20188By Anjali Awasthi, Director, Medkonect ServicesMedkonect Services is a healthcare technology platform that connects patients with the healthcare providers and enables them to have seamless & hassle-free communication by leveraging advanced tools to drive healthcare related conversations.C omplicated and invasive clinical procedures will always require experts, so the focus for most Indian healthcare innovations has been on prevention and early detection, to compensate for infrastructure absence and resource deficits in India, saving costs, time and efforts. Many health tech compa-nies and startups have done exempla-ry work on IT, IoT, EMR, mhealth, AI, telehealth, virtual health, home health, cloud and predictive analyt-ics. Today, there are many clinical grade devices and solutions available that are reliable, effective and afford-able. Digital is beginning to change the way healthcare is delivered. To validate the potential of health tech, a recent report released by CII & PWC states mobile delivery of healthcare alone has the potential to save the country $0.8-1 billion annuallyWith access to even basic health-care a challenge and India's doctor patient ratio of 1:1500, it will take time to balance demand and supply, and no amount of funding will ever be enough to solve the many prob-lems of high patient volumes, unless there is a will to adopt technology and increasingly advanced solutions. What we need is to make these inno-vative solutions more accessible and acceptable. If finding enough doctors is a continuing challenge, another equally large challenge is changing their mindsets to adopt technology. Slow adoption has been the biggest barrier to successful mass imple-mentations of technology. Industry experts attribute this resistance to lack of sufficient understanding, less time for training, dearth of medical tech experience, compatibility with legacy systems, clinical sensitivities, compliances and accountabilities IN MY OPINIONTECHNOLOGY TO MAKE HEALTHCARE IN INDIA MORE ACCESSIBLE & AFFORDABLE
< Page 7 | Page 9 >