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India undoubtedly needs more doctors, more hospitals and greater investment in healthcare infrastructure. However, improving healthcare outcomes is not only about increasing capacity. It is equally about ensuring that every consultation builds upon the previous one instead of beginning from scratch, said Smriti Tandon, co-founder, Online Chikitsa Mitra and 120by80, the healthcare platforms of Salubrious Technologies.
Community pharmacists are uniquely positioned to enable this transformation because they are often the first healthcare touchpoint and the ones patients return to most frequently. With the right digital infrastructure, they can evolve beyond dispensing medicines to becoming trusted coordinators of continuity of care, helping connect patients, doctors, diagnostic centres, and hospitals through a shared flow of clinical information, she added.
Imagine a healthcare ecosystem where a patient's first interaction at a neighbourhood medical store becomes the beginning of a connected healthcare journey. A consultation with a doctor, diagnostic investigations, prescriptions, follow-up visits, specialist referrals and treatment adherence are all linked through a longitudinal electronic health record that travels with the patient rather than remaining scattered across multiple providers. A connected healthcare ecosystem can begin with a patient’s first interaction at a neighbourhood medical store and extend across the entire care, Smriti told Pharmabiz.
Every morning across India, outpatient departments (OPDs) begin filling long before doctors arrive. We call it a doctor shortage scenario. Overcrowded OPDs are not the disease. It is a visible symptom of a healthcare system that has never been designed to use a doctor's time efficiently which is a limited resource, she noted.
Healthcare discussions frequently revolve around infrastructure, hospital beds, medical equipment, and specialist numbers. These are important indicators, but they overlook something far more valuable. Now doctors should spend their time diagnosing, counselling, and treating patients. Instead, a significant portion of every consultation is often consumed understanding information that already exists but remains scattered across prescriptions, laboratories, hospitals, and paper files carried by patients themselves. The issue is therefore not simply the availability of information. It is the absence of continuity, she said.
This is where artificial intelligence will play a transformative role. It will not replace doctors but will ensure they spend less time managing information and more time practising medicine. We see digital platforms can create meaningful value. Community pharmacists trained healthcare workers, digital systems, and structured care teams each have an important role to play. Therefore, the future of primary healthcare will depend not only on producing more doctors, but on building systems where information moves seamlessly, referrals happen at the right time and every healthcare interaction contributes to a patient's lifelong health record, said Smriti.
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