Digital health has emerged as a potential game-changer for enabling accessible, affordable, and quality health care for all. Globally, the digital health landscape is maturing rapidly, with investments in digital health reaching $57.2 billion in 2021.

India too is experiencing a rapid maturing of the digital health ecosystem and the launch of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) is a step toward the long-pending digital standardisation of the healthcare sector. Strong tailwinds, such as the changing patient and provider attitude toward digital solutions, burgeoning private sector investment, and an enabling environment created by government initiatives are helping Indian healthcare to move towards a strong digital revolution.

Digital solutions can help mitigate individual and nationwide health emergencies through information received from disease surveillance. With the help of public health data, disease outbreaks can also be predicted and stemmed preemptively. Digital health can increase access to care irrespective of location by leveraging interventions such as telemedicine, teleradiology, Tele-ICUs, connecting remote and rural regions to the healthcare network. This would enable early detection of risks and diseases through longitudinal health records, point of care devices and more.

Yet, the lack of digital literacy, limited Internet and Communication Technology penetration, affordability, gender biases, and age gaps, among other socioeconomic issues, limit the reach and acceptance of digital health solutions for a population that most needs them. Many digital health solutions in the market today are in English, and this prevents many Indians from easily using them. In the healthcare provider ecosystem, while the large corporate hospital chains are moving to digitised operations, smaller setups such as clinics and low-cost nursing homes continue to lag behind. Change management costs such as the upgradation of existing hardware and software, training of staff, and the digital entry of data, apart from the other indirect costs, impact the adoption of digital health solutions among healthcare providers. Independent practitioners who run small clinics, especially in the rural areas of the country, still use traditional paper-based methods of storing data. For most of these professionals, the feasibility of adopting digital tools is very low. Although there is a growing interest in healthtech solutions, the number of solutions available for the underserved remains limited.

Read the full article about digital health solutions by Granthika Chatterjee and Arun Jose at Alliance Magazine.