#3: India’s Leading Healthcare Influencer

With- Dr. Vikram Venkateswaran Duration: 33 minutes

In Conversation with Dr  Vikram Venkateshvaran  

Founder and editor of Healthcare India, a think tank that is passionate about building futuristic models for healthcare in India.  

Dr. Vikram Venkateswaran is a strategy consulting professional with vast experience. He serves on various industry committees on healthcare and has published papers on a wide range of topics like Patient Experience, Blockchain, and Public Health. His area of expertise lies in devising healthcare strategy, go to market strategy, customer acquisition, digital health, and healthcare public policy.  

Podcast Insights

Question:

Q. We are seeing a radical and fundamental shift in HC systems. What according to you has changed quintessentially?

Dr Vikram:

Today in history you have to look at who is at the centre of the value chain And in India the person at the centre of the value chain is the patient and the patient party. There are three factors that are driving the digital transformation:

  1. The expectation of the patients, and that is the biggest driver for digital transformation
  2. The pandemic was the great trigger which changed everything
  3. People are now seeing health in a holistic way; the onus of taking care of one’s health falls with the individual. The market has shifted from patients to every person, because now the objective is not to fall ill. Organizations are transforming to serve the larger market.
  4. Today the care delivery model has changed; a patient does not need to wait for his doctor, he can seek an appointment online and get diagnosed from his office. Innovations in the care delivery model are happening. Patients can consult a doctor overseas and his care would be delivered by local hospital. AI is also driving a lot of change by helping in diagnosis.

Q. Traditionally in the healthcare system, every institution has survived. Now with the advent of the digital, do you see that this will change, moving forward, are we going to see winners and losers?

Dr Vikram:

  1. The winners and losers are already there. The winners are those who have the data, who have the systems to harness data,  analyze it and use it in delivering better care. Loser will be those who can not either harness data, or do not even have it. The data is also allowing smaller institutions to focus and improve the patient experience.

A lot of non-traditional healthcare organizations who are generating and using a lot of data will take giant leaps forward.

BIggest losers may be the hospitals who do not change, and are very rigid right now

Q. Apart from the use of data and analytics, do you see the paradigm of seeing patients as customers and focusing on patient experience as a factor that becomes the core differentiator between healthcare providers?

Dr Vikram:

  1. Today, the opportunity lies in seeing a person as a patient, but as a consumer of healthcare services who is subscribing to the services not to get hospitalized.

The healthcare institutions will still make money, because the touchpoints will be more. So the need for a massive intervention is spread across time in the form of smaller interventions and checks. Healthcare is coming to the patient in the form of mobile, connected devices and more instead of vice versa. So, the whole paradigm changes, from an intervention based medicine to a preventive medicine. We may see health plans who reward if you do not get hospitalized.

Hospitals will change their function, they will move from one stop intervention to an organization that partners you throughout.

Q. How much time do you think the hospitals have to go digital?

Dr Vikram:

  1. It will take 5-10 years. The biggest challenge comes from the way data is stored. The data storage is very expensive, hospitals compress data to save cost. This results in errors when the data is used for analysis and when AI is deployed.
  2. The biggest challenge is the interoperability of the systems, they do not speak with each other and hence can not share the information and fail to leverage the data available.
  3. Another challenge is the lack of standard SoPs which today are experience driven.
  4. Also, the institutions who will rise will be the ones who are not afraid to fail. Failure is part of growth, and is inevitable.

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