Healthier and wealthier India: Ask our future

As the world enters 2023 with a hope of having a better year with or without Covid-19 and its aftermath, the Indian healthcare industry looks toward all the stakeholders, government, private as well as public organizations to come together and create a better, viable, and an accessible healthcare ecosystem.

For a healthier and wealthier India, following issues and opportunities need to be addressed:

• Healthcare expenditure;
• Healthcare infrastructure;
• Healthcare skills and technology development;
• Medical value travel and heal in India mission; and
• Shift in disease burden by prevention and early detection.

Healthcare expenditure. India’s health expenditure, which was 2.1 percent of GDP in 2021-2022 needs to be increase to at least 3.5 percent of GDP. This will not only help in increasing healthcare delivery assurance to the consumers but also motivate all the delivery stake holders to come ahead and make newer investments and fill in the gaps of universal health coverage.

Healthcare infrastructure. Covid -19 proved that the Indian hospital industry is ready to take giant leap to provide healthcare services within a short span of time. Now it becomes even more relevant for the industry to take this as an example and look at expanding their infrastructure not only within the cities, and but also in tier II or tier III towns. While the industry is ready, the support required from government would be in terms of free or subsidized rates for land for building hospitals. Highly subsidized rate for set up, lower rates for power, higher FSI for buildings, tax incentives for newer healthcare projects, would help in channelizing more investments in this direction.

Healthcare skill and technology development. Development and upgradation of skilled healthcare workers is very crucial in care delivery process. While the hospital industry is keen at having various academic programs for all healthcare providers, i.e. doctors, nurses, and technicians. The sector also needs support from the government in terms of incentives for setting up such programs. These incentives could be in terms of tax benefits or subsidized rates of providing training or even expedition in getting the course, to be inducted at the institution.

Technology is yet another domain which is going to rule the future of this industry. It is estimated that the e-health market will be USD 10.6 billion by the year 2025. These include all, from the basic mandatory requirement of electronic medical records to the most advanced technology like artificial intelligence and machine learning. A boost from government, hospital, and health tech industry would make this a reality in India. These along with tax benefits and incentives could be the driving force for the Indian market.

Medical value travel and heal in India. The medical tourism market is estimate to be USD 13.42 billion by 2026. For year 2020-2021, Medical Tourism Association has ranked India as 10th on the Medical Tourism Index (MTI) out of the 46 destination across the globe. While the hospital industry and the medical tourism companies are working directly or in collaboration with each other for getting more foreign patients under Heal In India concept, the government should look at the possibilities of having easier approach for visa and tourism for such patients who can benefit and be a source of influx of foreign revenue to our country.

Shift in disease burden by prevention and early detection. In India, currently 50 percent of the diseases burden is due to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and these account for 60 percent of all deaths. These NCD’s are estimated to account for 75 percent of diseases burden in India by 2025. To control this, preventive health checkup or regular health checkups is the only key. While the hospital industry is looking at educating people about the early detection is better than cure concept, the government also needs to motivate the citizens to go for health checkup by making it mandatory via the health insurance, increasing the medical reimbursement exemption, and increasing the 80D tax deductions.

To sum up, India’s healthcare industry is moving in the right direction, but a lot needs to be done by all the stakeholders to make India a healthier and wealthier country!