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The Vinoba Bhave Research Institute (VBRI) emphasizes the need to adopt cloud medicine to thwart the shortfall of medical expertise and healthcare centres in India. The Institute sees the imminent need for a SaaS-based cloud platform to transform healthcare access health information for doctors to analyze patient data with existing electronic health records (EHS).
In order to streamline process of prescription and pathology lab data of patients, the Institute is working with the technocrats to deliver mass medicine projects with artificial intelligence, machine learning and 5G Internet of Thing (IoT) enabled programmable devices.
“Smart healthcare technology provides real time quality healthcare. Our integrated system is now in the third stage of field trial. It is ready to create zero distance between patients and health infrastructure. The idea is to secure healthcare for anyone in India regardless of economic status even in remote areas”, said Ashutosh Tiwari, chairman and managing director, VBRI.
Healthcare in India is underserved. Taking cue from Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP) report on India which indicated for every 10,189 people, there is only one government doctor, Tiwari said, “We have 35,416 government hospitals with 13, 76,013 beds. But unfortunately, merely 2? of the doctors serve in rural India, which comprises 68% of our population. Also, the nurse and patient ratio in India stands at 1:483 implying a shortage of two million nurses. Here, cloud medicine can enable efficiency.”
Now the penetration of cloud medicine looks within reach as India is projected to have 829 million smart-phone users by 2022. If e-commerce behemoth Amazon can reach to the remotest part of Nagaland or Arunachal Pradesh, with an intrinsic framework and network, cloud medicine can reach farthest part of India, thus making healthcare truly accessible, pointed out Tiwari.
Quoting a report he said, “India has spent Rs. 3 per day and Rs. 1,112 per person on healthcare for its citizens annually. This is a sharp contrast to what is recommended by WHO which estimates delivering Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in India through the combined efforts of public and private sectors would be Rs. 1,713 per person, per year.”
“In rural India 68% of population reside and deprived of basic healthcare. There are instances where a patient succumbs untimely because of non-availability of medical attention. Here we realize importance of technology in social service delivery to improve the general quality of life. Cloud medicine allows access to doctors for diagnosis and prescriptions. This model also makes sense for urban areas where 58% qualified doctors reside,” stated Dr. Tiwari.
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