Resistance to digitisation of affected person well being information by many healthcare suppliers is as a result of they don’t wish to be accountable, mentioned Indu Bhushan, former chairman of Nationwide Well being Authority and former CEO of Ayushman Bharat.
Talking at a panel dialogue on “Way forward for Care: Revolutionising Healthcare By way of Digital Innovation and Collaboration” on the World Buyers’ Meet on Thursday, Dr. Bhushan cited an instance of medical doctors who prescribe investigation exams and antibiotics unnecessarily. “In addition they don’t wish to be accountable, as a result of, in response, there isn’t any profit. As an alternative, it will increase their workload,” he mentioned.
“There are medical doctors who prescribe pointless antibiotics or pointless exams. They don’t wish to have it on document by way of digital means, as a result of at the moment if you do it on paper, it is rather tough to audit that. However by way of digital well being you’ll be able to see that this physician at all times prescribes antibiotics, no matter what sort of illnesses the affected person comes with. So they are going to be extra accountable,” he defined.
He mentioned it additionally holds good with interoperability of well being information. “Many hospitals don’t want their sufferers to go away the hospital and go to a different hospital. That’s the reason they want the affected person information to be with them. I’m not casting aspersions on all hospitals. However, that is the truth,” mentioned Dr. Bhushan, who was instrumental in rolling out the Ayushman Bharat Digital Well being Mission (ABDM) within the nation.
Inequitable expertise use
Stating that expertise use is inequitably distributed, Dr. Bhushan mentioned there are some hospitals the place digital expertise is working very effectively. “They ship studies on time. They hyperlink present studies to the earlier ones. However once more, there are others who should not doing this, or different sufferers who should not receiving the identical service.”
“Nevertheless, acceptability will enhance within the subsequent 5 years, just like digital (UPI) funds. Within the preliminary phases, there might be divergence. However as soon as we’ve a crucial mass, it will likely be the insurance coverage payers who will insist that we must always have digital information as a result of it’s simple to watch. In all international locations the place digital well being has taken root, it’s largely as a result of insurance coverage firms and payers have insisted on this as a result of they’ve a vested curiosity in guaranteeing that every one the information are digital,” he mentioned.
Public well being insurance policies
Asserting that public well being infrastructure and the general public well being insurance policies will drive the digital adoption within the nation, Ashutosh Raghuvanshi, Managing Director of Fortis Healthcare sought to know why the federal government has not made ABDM obligatory for all hospitals.
ABDM goals to digitise healthcare supply by constructing an ecosystem that rides on collaboration between the federal government and the non-public sector. Nevertheless, it’s optionally available.
“Public sector is far more organised as a result of repetitions don’t occur. So the wastage is minimal. However within the non-public sector, the sufferers go to at least one place, do some set of investigations, then go to a different place, do one other set of investigations. By the point the sufferers come for the process, they’ve self exhausted all their monetary sources. So I feel there are loads of challenges,” he mentioned.
Sonal Asthana, Programme Director of Liver Transplantation at Aster group of Hospitals, who moderated the session, sought to know from the panelists the challenges confronted in digital adoption. “What are the precise safety wants we must always take into consideration in an Synthetic Intelligence (AI) pushed world for healthcare?” he requested.
Shashank N.D., CEO of Practo, emphasised the significance of anonymisation in expertise, notably in FinTech and HealthTech to guard private data with out compromising on performance.
The panelists additionally mentioned the essential side of sluggish adoption of healthcare insurance coverage in India and if digital improvements may also help in creating novel monetary fashions for cost.
Printed – February 13, 2025 10:00 pm IST
