Remote Health Monitoring

We have come across data that shows paucity of healthcare professionals and healthcare infrastructure in rural and semi-urban areas of India. We also know that it would take generations for us to remove this disparity. In this kind of scenario, any possible solution should work around constraints and bring in a game-changing proposition.

The constraint here is the scarcity of specialist medical help in rural and remote areas. The healthcare parameters in such areas are extremely poor and the traditional solutions offer little respite. The game-changing proposition we offer is the technology-enabled monitoring system for remote patients.

Wireless Health Incident Monitoring System (WHIMS) is a humble piece of technology which enables a city-based specialist doctor to monitor the health of his patients. A trained health worker or a rural doctor provides the primary care to the patients and records information related to their health in WHIMS’ application. WHIMS can be accessed through internet or through mobiles. Low-cost portable diagnostic devices empower the primary care providers to capture precise health information of the patients and provide it to the consultants. While we do not use any tele-medicine interface, the same can be built into the system.

Remote Health Monitoring has the potential to create a viable scalable healthcare model for rural areas because the scare specialist resources are utilized efficiently. Better care can be delivered to the patients at a fraction of the cost to an urban patient.

While the opportunity is real, we must also realize that this is not the solution in totality. Some percentage of patients will require emergency care and in-patient treatments. In some other cases, high-end diagnostics may be required. Even towns do not have such facilities. Clearly, government’s role in creating such an infrastructure cannot be negated. Public-private partnership (PPP) can also be a model where government supports and encourages private players to create such an infrastructure.