CIOTechOutlook >> Magazine >> June - 2013 issue

Role of IT in Transforming Primary Healthcare

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Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease. India has a large aging population with millions suffering from chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension and cardio. Even in this modern era a huge segment of the population is fighting with the issues of maternal deaths, burden of various communicable diseases, poor child health and nutrition.

There are still scores of PHCs running without medical professionals. Absenteeism is rampant. By and large, physicians do not want to work in rural and/ or remote areas; there are millions of people living in these areas with no access to healthcare and usually end up going to unqualified practitioners, or just ignoring their medical needs till it is too late.

Doctor to patient ratio in India is 1:2000. 625 million Indians living in rural areas have access to less than 20 percent of the available doctors. This is an alarming problem. With global populations expand and shift, the healthcare sector is coming under increasing pressure. The time-lag between the occurrence of medical need and delivery of the medical services, makes the requirement of an effective amalgamation of healthcare services with technology even more imperative.

Primary healthcare is a fundamental strategy for improving health of the population.

Community based programs and experiments that date back to the early 1930's done in China, Peru, India and other counties highlighting the importance of empowering the people to care for themselves. The work stresses that the emphasis has to shift from showing immediate results from single interventions to creating long-term, integrated, sustainable health systems which are effective and can be built from a more selective primary health care start. The declaration of primary health care (Alma-Ata) in 1978 with the objective of Health for All through Primary Health Care by 2000 is still a distant dream for most under-developed, developing and even developed nations in the world.

Despite of the fact that the Healthcare Industry is one of the fastest growing sectors worldwide with 10.6 percent growth rate globally, Healthcare IT is not being utilized efficiently to take away the increasing burden of healthcare delivery and better care to patients.

Healthcare sector needs a major reform - a transformation with steps which are technology driven and information powered - to reach to a stage where it is completely integrated across the entire continuum of care and can offer more sustainable health system.

Governments, both Central and State, along with the key private players in the healthcare providers segment needs to have a complete buy in and clear vision towards setting up a Healthcare IT infrastructure for the country.

The future of healthcare lies in advanced m-health solutions, moving to cloud for better efficiency, stronger data management-flow and analytics, remote patient monitoring, telemedicine, creating access to personal health records, seamless health information exchange and more.

Access to accurate and meaningful information is needed for all stakeholders within the healthcare ecosystem with the ever increasing challenge of coordinated care where access to information spans across organizational boundaries. Advance technology that moves information to the right point of contact at the right time thereby connecting various stakeholders will address this need.

Systems of the future will need to adapt and evolve smarter means of delivering meaningful information to a diverse set of stakeholders who operate in a digital healthcare environment thereby educating and empowering - patients with wellness information and easy access to their medical records and clinicians with powerful range of analytical and diagnostic tools and managers to plan resources and co-ordinate care.

The future of efficient healthcare environment lies in developing integrated systems that blend the EMR with new methods of communication, remote care and process management to build seamless systems and workflows. A shift in the reactive to preventive approach in addressing healthcare needs combined with a move from institutional to home based care is a must.

This transformation that effectively blends technology with the healthcare facilities is important towards achieving physical, social and mental well-being of human being.

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