Excelsior Correspondent
India is a highly populous country with limited access to quality healthcare. With a scarcity of doctors, especially in rural areas, and the high cost and inconvenience associated with traveling long distances for medical consultations, many people struggle to receive timely and adequate healthcare services.
The gap in healthcare demand and medical services availability in Indian villages has been a matter of concern for decades. The major challenge remains the disinterest of senior doctors to leave their high paying city practices to provide care in the villages. It is observed that even well-qualified doctors belonging to villages prefer to settle in cities, given the better earning opportunities there. Therefore, adding to the already huge doctor scarcity in the rural region.
While the government has been persistently trying to improve the services in villages by setting up wellness centres, improving the PHCs infrastructure and launching several free healthcare schemes for the poor, the ever increasing rural population coupled with a load of new age diseases is keeping the demand for advanced health services and super specialists up.
Digital healthcare, is an umbrella term for anything related to the intersection between healthcare and technology. While use of modern day medical equipment is a result of advanced technology, digital healthcare per se means to highlight the use of technology to improve the delivery of care. The most used term under digital healthcare, these days, is telemedicine.
Telemedicine offers a solution by bridging the gap between patients and healthcare providers, enabling remote consultations, and reducing the burden on physical infrastructure. Telemedicine is revolutionising the way people receive medical consultations and treatment.
The telemedicine industry in India has witnessed exponential growth in recent years. According to a report by RedSeer Consulting, the Indian telemedicine market is expected to reach a value of USD 5.5 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 31 per cent from 2020. This surge can be attributed to several factors, including increased internet penetration, smartphone adoption, and policy support from the government. As of 2021, India had over 624 million internet users and more than 820 million smartphone users. This widespread connectivity has enabled people from even remote areas to access telemedicine services, bringing healthcare within reach for millions.
As telemedicine revolutionises remote healthcare in India, a Jammu-based start-up is working consistently to connect the remote areas of J&K with the best of medical practitioners of India.
O-Health is a Jammu based healthcare start-up which is active on the telemedicine space and aims at connecting the remote areas of J&K with the medical expertise of the country.
O-Health is a first of its kind telemedicine service in Jammu and Kashmir which provides audio-visual consultation to the people.
O-Health is the lead member of the digital health initiative “Doctor on Wheels” running in the rural areas of Jammu division for the past couple of years. The startup is providing the tech support for getting access to specialist from all over India. The digital prescriptions are then printed and handed over to the patients. All the data is stored in O-Health cloud sever for improving future service delivery.
“O-Health was started with the aim to provide consultations from India’s best doctors to our patients in Jammu. After several iterations, from a simple video consultation with a specialist to now working on an ultra simplified mobile app for the village patients, we have come a long way.”, said Arunoday Singh, the founder of O-Health and a health economics graduate from the London School of Economics. “The concept of Doctor on Wheels is highly beneficial to the rural masses, as it not only provides the needy patients with blood testing and medicines but also helps them get consultation from specialists concerned, thus completing the care delivery loop”, Arunoday added.
“AIIMS Delhi data shows that over 60% patients visiting them, mostly from villages, require just primary healthcare, however, due to the paucity of good doctors at the sub centre level, the patients throng at larger medical institutions” said Arunoday. “If we can create a mechanism to establish adequate primary healthcare facility at the village level, we can solve two major problems at once”, asserts Arunoday.
To ensure better quality consultations, doctors from various specialisations are available for consultation. Patients can see the name and details of the doctor while the call is on. They can also view the medical registration number of the doctor, adding to complete transparency to the consultation procedure as per the Telemedicine guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health, Govt. of India. “WHO prescribed allopathic doctor to patient ratio is 1:1000, which in India is 1:10,000, making telemedicine an essential tool to help our doctors reach out to the maximum number of patients possible”, said the founder. O-Health claims to have provided nearly 10,000 patient consultations in Doda and Kathua districts of J&K in the last two years.
During the pandemic, O-Health gave 300+ consultations to COVID-19 patients throughout the country in a short span where most of the patients were from J&K. Given that many did not know how to deal with the situation, this start-up was able to give the necessary assistance to people ranging from reviewing their dosage to avoid overuse, to helping them deal with stress and anxiety.
“Bracing for a post pandemic world, to ensure sustainability in our working model, we plan to operate on a low cost service setup aimed at serving high number of patients and having a sustainable market share. With on-going system upgradation, we are prepared for a better service delivery and provide people with easy and quick access to healthcare”, said Arunoday.
In the age where people manage all aspects of life online, we can say that telemedicine is no more the future rather the present. This kind of health service still is a developing market in India despite the advantages that it has.
Not to mention, telemedicine is an innovative technique which promises to offer the necessary medical consultation service to patients when in-person consultation with the doctor is not feasible.
Telemedicine has made a profound impact on healthcare delivery in rural areas, where medical resources are scarce. Through teleconsultations, patients in remote villages can connect with doctors in urban centres, receiving timely diagnosis and treatment. In 2019, the World Health Organization reported that telemedicine in India had led to a 45 per cent reduction in mortality rates in rural areas, highlighting its life-saving potential.
Telemedicine has also facilitated access to specialized medical expertise for patients across the country. Through virtual consultations, patients can seek opinions from renowned specialists located in metropolitan cities, bypassing the need for expensive travel and long waiting times. This has particularly benefited individuals with chronic illnesses and those requiring expert opinions for complex medical conditions.
With start-ups like O-Health, there is a ray of hope for people to get affordable and accessible healthcare, especially the rural inhabitants, which hardly have adequate health facilities around them. The growth of telemedicine in an year itself shows promising results in the field of medicine. While telemedicine opened a new world for new age medical care, it is yet to establish itself as the new normal for medical consultations in India.
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