A Look At The Opportunities In Healthcare
The world is looking up to India for various sectors in the next decade. The healthcare and diagnostic industry is one of the top rankers amongst them. Healthcare delivery in India is now uniquely poised to undergo a change at all its stages – prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. No single entity in the healthcare sector can work in isolation. The population of our country has added an additional population of 450 million in 2016, but the rise has given a dual picture to our health pyramid. By that, I mean that there is a dual rise of communicable diseases and also a parallel rise of lifestyle diseases.
The challenges which we face are also the opportunities for our industry. As other sectors in our country, our private sector has chipped and filled the gap between the availability of the services in some areas.
Population. Our rising population and increasing capacity to spend has been marked by an increase in communicable diseases and lifestyle diseases. Also a sizeable number of the population is facing geriatric disease burden due to the ageing population.
Low government spend, more out-of-pocket expenses. Our industry is facing a plethora of challenges. In our country, people spend more than 60 percent of their healthcare expenses from their personal savings. The government infrastructure as compared to the population is just not enough to cater to the growing demand of services. Hence, the need of more and more regional, tier II and tier III setups will be needed to match up to the demand of the population.
Employment opportunities. As more and more staff (both skilled and unskilled labor) will be needed in these areas, there will be job opportunities for youth in this sector, particularly tier II and tier III setups.
Insurance sector. Insurance is the most unexploited sector in our country. More than 70 percent of our people are not covered by insurance for their health. There is a huge scope and big opportunity for this sector in the next 10 years.
Big opportunity in tier II and tier III cities. Our distribution is completely irregular with more concentration in urban areas. Despite of various government schemes like PHCs and CHCs there is acute shortage in rural areas. Various government schemes boost these developments for infrastructure and economy.
Information technology. IT is set to play a big role with IT applications being used for social-sector schemes on a large scale. Several new computer and mobile-phone based e-health and m-health initiatives were launched on World Health Day in 2016. As technology increasingly plays an important role in healthcare, the data indicate growing attention from private investment and start-ups.
Point-of-care devices. The diagnostic industry is coming with more accurate and precise PoCT devices with fast turnaround time results. This is already changing the scene in the healthcare industry.
Accreditation and certifications. The participation is voluntary; however, with more awareness, availability of multiple options like NABL, NABH, JCI, CAHO, CAP, and newer bodies like QAI, our industry in getting more and more into quality output endorsements.
Screening and diagnostics. Again with more population rise, more spending capacity, and more access to knowledge platforms our population is moving slowly toward screening and prevention of diseases. Hence, a big rise in technologies for preventive screening and diagnostics is already seen and will rise further.
Finally, take home message:
A big opportunity for the industry lies in equipment and reagents. The roadblocks as mentioned, can lead to innovation of more technologies with equipment manufactured in our country; reagents having smaller pack sizes, equipment on solar energy to help centers reduce the cost of running equipment, easily portable machines – so that the services can be given from each village to small towns, and online teaching courses for technologists and staff so that unskilled labor can be converted into semi-skilled labor.
