HOW TELEHEALTH IS TRANSFORMING THE RURAL HEALTHCARE

HOW TELEHEALTH IS TRANSFORMING THE RURAL HEALTHCARE

Almost all of us have heard that Internet has transformed the modern life. Yes, indeed! It has changed the ways in which we stay in touch with our families and friends, purchase and sell goods and also the way we look for information about various things including healthcare!

Telehealth involves using a broad range of digital information and communication technologies such as computers and mobile devices for the delivery of health services and health information over both long and short distances. It also aims at improving the healthcare delivery system as a whole.

India is a developing country and is moving forward at a fast pace in the area of technology. These advancements have triggered the concern of whether technology can help the country bring about a change in its existing healthcare ecosystem.

While big hospitals and healthcare centres in urban areas may boast of high-end technologies, the semi urban and rural areas are yet to fully utilize the potential of telehealth.

According to World Health Organization*, rural India is facing challenges related to distribution of staff. Urban India is much better served. Rural areas have only 0.39 doctors per 1000 population, 0.41 nurses and midwives per 1000 population. This is much less when compared to urban areas.

While the state has been trying to provide quality health services through public health systems (PHCs etc), the private sector is dominated by Quacks, unqualified Alternative Medical practitioners and pharmacies prescribing medicines.

Most people in rural India visit the doctors only after they have tried everything else. This leads to a poor and expensive healthcare outcome as doctors often get to see patients only in serious conditions.

Through a survey on health seeking behaviour conducted by us, we found out that for a major portion of the populace, cost and travel distance are the reasons for choosing local medical facilities for treatment.

So, the key challenges related to the penetration of healthcare in rural parts of the country are distance, cost and availability of good doctors.

Telehealth is helping the rural India in overcoming these challenges. It is aiming at providing better and affordable primary care with the use of digital information and communication technologies and also improving the healthcare system as a whole.

It can help to decrease the number of cases that need expensive treatment by focusing on quality primary care. This will lead to better healthcare outcomes.

Through the right usage of technology, we can combat some of the most challenging problems of our current healthcare system like proper access to care, limited health providers and specialists and affordable care.

Telehealth is the best way to bridge the urban and rural health divide.

A telehealth system is a small health centre that consists of a personal computer with customized medical software connected to diagnostic equipment like ECG, BP, Glucose monitor etc.

Through this system, the specialist centre receives the digitized versions of patient’s medical and diagnostic reports where experienced doctors examine them and suggest appropriate treatment through video conferencing.

This entire system is user-friendly and even a single trained technician can operate it. This helps to overcome the challenge of availability of less medical staff in rural India. Through this, the patients are able to get better medical treatment at less cost and less distance.

Apart from less cost and less distance, there are few other benefits of telehealth like

• Care quality: Numerous studies have shown that telemedicine can facilitate outstanding care with high degree of patient satisfaction and positive outcomes. In some scenarios, it is better than the traditional in-person interactions.
• Improved access: Telehealth can provide better quality of healthcare services to patients in rural areas and also to those with transportation problems.
• Convenience: Telehealth helps the patients to consult a doctor from virtually anywhere.
• Education: When it comes to the education and training of technicians, there is a big difference between watching recorded instructions and actually being able to interact with an instructor. The technicians can observe their working methodology and interact with the healthcare experts.
• Quick access Camps: In remote areas or post disaster situations, telehealth is very useful to provide healthcare services quickly.

Although it has many advantages, telemedicine in India has not been free of challenges. Few of those challenges are:

• Internet Connectivity: Internet connectivity in remote rural areas, though is improving, needs to be further established. Telehealth is dependent on the availability of a connected interface, so that remote doctor can see the patient.
• Risk of error: Remote healthcare decreases human interaction which tends to increase the scope for error if an inexperienced professional delivers the service.
• Information security: Leakage of confidential information like patient records, medical history, prescriptions etc. can happen through faulty medical system.
• Acceptability: One inevitable challenge is acceptability of new systems and technologies. There is a fear of not being able to handle the modern equipments.
• Staffing: Telehealth is not just about having better technology in place but also about having approachable and well qualified human interface to interact with. So, there is a need to hire the right kind of medical personnel and this involves a lot of money and time.

Despite the challenges, the future looks bright for digital healthcare.

Since the cost of healthcare is growing rapidly and also because it is nonexistent in some places, the demand for Telehealth continues to grow. Despite the challenges, the Indian healthcare system is continuously adopting and implementing new technologies to provide better and affordable care to its patient population. We can expect that telehealth, teleradiology, remote patient monitoring and other remote healthcare technologies will help in making the difference.

References:

[* Ref: World Health Statistics]

Jyoti Agrawal

Summer Intern

Medi360