The future of healthcare revolves around three Ps

Over the last two years, the Covid-19 pandemic presented the Indian healthcare system and industry with a huge set of challenges. It highlighted all the gaps in the system and put a spotlight on the demand for a medical revolution. However, despite the challenges, there were opportunities. Now since the business and all markets are coming back to the normal, we have learnt a new lesson to focus our energy on being proactive, predictive, and preventive.

Being proactive
The pandemic has disrupted the regular working and forced companies to think out of the box in order to remain in business. Only companies, which accepted the Charles Darwin’s theory, survived. We at Apollo continuously evolve with the needs of the patient and their family. So, Apollo is present at every critical touch point of the healthcare ecosystem, be it through Alexa for appointments or homecare post-discharge, and even up in the Himalayas through its telehealth service.

We know that India has too few doctors, not enough hospital beds, and a low share of state spending on healthcare, relative to GDP. Digital solutions can help alleviate the shortage of medical professionals by making doctors and nurses more productive. Apollo took the opportunity; within 15 days of the pandemic coming into force, we had over 4500 doctors on a telemedicine platform. It helped over 20 million patients across diverse geographies and achieved noteworthy success.

Increasing prediction
Till as early as a decade back, artificial intelligence (AI) was considered technology whose active usage was still far away in a distant future. However, thanks to new machine learning methods, AI has evolved faster than most people would have imagined.

With Alexa skill, Apollo Hospitals introduced power voice-assisted hospital search and appointment booking, making it ultra-convenient for present-day users.

We are also operating remote ICUs, which make remote care accessible and enable communication between off-site clinicians and bedside staff to provide real-time patient care using teleconsultation and IoT link.

Ushering prevention
India is reeling under a pandemic situation with the growing prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Apollo has taken the battle against illness beyond the physical realm of its hospitals, and is working to empower Indians with knowledge about preventive and proactive healthcare – the key to averting avoidable mortalities especially those due to NCDs.

The roadmap for Apollo, Ahmedabad
For the year ahead, we are planning to strengthen our footprints in the wider areas of Rajasthan, MP, and Gujarat in the form of filter clinics for expanding our reach to the population and helping them get primary care and easy follow-up consultations. With the help of Apollo Connect we are strengthening the nursing homes and smaller hospitals to improve their clinical quality and capability with the support of Apollo and bring the Apollo’s excellence within the reach of every patient, even if they are unable to travel to an Apollo facility, and also strengthen the relationship between our partner hospitals and us.

We are also focusing on strengthening our connect with the patients abroad to attract medical tourism. We are upgrading our medical equipment to improve the diagnosis and bring the best technology with us.