Doctor on call: M-Health poised to improve public health in India: Hitachi in India

The advent of M-Health initiatives in India also sets the public purse to benefit. For instance, to visit a specialist in the closest city from a village, sometimes a patient has to travel long distance, resulting in not only spending money on the appointment, but also on other miscellaneous expenses. This is what dissuades the rural populace from seeking guidance until it’s a medical emergency, often leading to health complications. But now, M-Health and similar healthcare mobility solutions can compensate for the deficiency of healthcare workforce and infrastructure. So even if an expecting mother is not travelling for frequent check-ups, an M-Health education service like Kilkari can assist her by delivering free, weekly, time-appropriate 72 audio messages about pregnancy, child birth and child care, directly to the family’s’ mobile phones, right from the second trimester of the pregnancy until the child is one year old.⁶

Besides mobile phones, Information & Communications technology (ICT) also plays an important role in improving healthcare technology in India by offering efficient ways of accessing, communicating and storing information. IoT in healthcare and healthcare data analytics enable a seamless patient journey using clinical, biomedical, telemetry and environmental data to deliver value-based healthcare. It also helps in bridging the gap between the health professionals and the communities they serve, as well as between health researchers and medical practitioners. For example, if a patient picks up a tropical disease while travelling abroad and the local physician is unable to diagnose it, he can instantly share the symptoms with doctors sitting anywhere in the world using ICT and get help with the diagnosis, successfully treating the patient and increasing his own pool of knowledge.⁷

Though there was a general apprehension about M-Health applications being too complex, this resistance is beginning to dilute now as people have realized its benefits. The Government has commenced several M-Health initiatives in India like Vaccine Tracker app, India Fights Dengue app, Swasth Bharat mobile app, National Health Portal, E-RaktKosh, etc. to improve healthcare services. Electronic Health Records (EHRs) of citizens are envisaged to be created for ensuring continuity of care and other associated benefits. Delivery of services to citizens through online mode is at the core of the overall electronic health ecosystem being talked about under the Digital India Programme.