Pune: As per the World Health Organisation (WHO), 44 per cent of the member countries have less than one physician per 1,000 persons in their population and India is no exception.
In 2017, it was reported that there are less than one doctor per 1,000 population in the country. But many digital platforms in India are now challenging this and are bridging the gap between patients and doctors.
Speaking to Sakal Times, Ashutosh Lawania, Co-founder of mfine said that digitalisation in healthcare is the next step. mfine is an AI-powered on-demand healthcare service, which enables virtual medical consultations in various cities across India.
“There is only one super speciality doctor per 5,500 patients. Technology in healthcare and digitisation will help the patients reach doctors in just 60 seconds. Many patients have to travel to take appointments of super specialists in major cities. This is an expensive ordeal. To cut it short, digital platform scan be used innovatively,” said Lawania. “We are trying to solve the problem about reaching more patients at mfine by connecting them to doctors in less time. By 2020, half of India will have access to smartphones. But there is a need to improve efficiency among doctors. We are bringing more hospitals on our platform,” said Lawania.
Echoing similar sentiments, Ashish Gupta- CEO at docprime.com and Chief Tech Evangelist- Policybazaar.com noted that the synergy of AI and telemedicine has the potential to address the problem of accessibility, affordability, and quality docprime.com is a platform that offers free online consultation and allows patients to book appointments with doctors.
“This is already seen in areas of understanding and analysing medical data to find out the precise issue and intensity of the disease. Also, in the area of customer information, the bots are taking over the mundane task of logging-in details like registering patients, updating contacts, booking an appointment, etc. for smooth customer service. This is further helping to utilise doctors’ time in prescribing the right treatment to patients, rather than collecting basic case histories,” said Gupta.
He added that technology has the potential to help in the management of chronic diseases and global epidemics.
“Artificial intelligence can help in the diagnoses of the disease and can assist in continuous monitoring of the patient’s’ status and administering the medication in patients,” said Gupta.
“With the help of Artificial intelligence, certain patterns like the weather condition, wind speed, proximity to water bodies, pollution, or earlier outbreaks, can be observed by the machine to give intelligent insights that can further help in clinical decision making,” he added.
