How Consumers are Driving the Next Healthcare Evolution in India

When much was unknown about the novel coronavirus, and lockdown measures were first introduced, one of the most visible signs of change was the heightened focus on safety says Rishi Suri, Director at Deloitte India.

Many patients were afraid to visit hospitals, especially at the beginning of the pandemic, which led to a boom in home-based care and remote monitoring. In fact, a recent Deloitte study conducted in India found that the number of telemedicine users increased from 21 percent to 44 percent of the respondents during lockdown — a sizeable jump in a country of 1.3 billion².

As consumers adjust to the new normal, such behavioural changes might be here to stay, creating a new era of consumer-driven healthcare.

Increased Trust and Shift to Digital Health Solutions

Despite the visible rise in the usage of telemedicine, the technology has actually been around for years. The first telemedicine initiative in India, for example, was set up nearly two decades ago³. Since then, India has gone through a digital revolution. Today, the country has over a half a billion internet users, with most of them connected via smartphones⁴.

“All the ingredients for telehealth and telemedicine were already in place, but there was a sense of wariness. Consumers and healthcare providers didn’t see any need to move away from the physical setting when it had proven to be an effective and profitable model. People just needed a push to change their behaviour and that is exactly what the recent pandemic provided,” explains Suri.

While the lack of consumer trust initially could be due to their limited exposure to such new modes of care, clinicians were also not fully convinced⁵.

According to Suri, clinicians once thought of telemedicine as a threat; believing that increasing access to medical advice virtually could lead to a decline in outpatient activities and create barriers to quality care.

Faced with lockdown measures and safety concerns raised by patients, however, clinicians had no choice but to shift outpatient activities online too.  Anticipating the increased need for telemedicine by healthcare providers, the Medical Council of India released practice guidelines in March 2020⁶. Such a move by the authorities was seen as an endorsement of digital health solutions.

COVID-19 has inadvertently helped build trust in these technologies, both among consumers and healthcare professionals. In the same Deloitte study, over 70 percent of respondents who had never used telemedicine services prior to the pandemic indicated an increase in willingness to try telemedicine going forward⁷.

According to Deloitte, “Organisations that understand and act on how consumers would like to use digital health, telehealth, wearable monitoring and fitness devices, online resources, social media, and other technologies will likely be well-positioned to develop patient engagement strategies that help individuals make informed health care decisions⁹.” 

In a sign of the times, private diagnostic laboratories in India have rolled out home collection services, where a trained medical professional visits the patient’s home to collect the swab or sample, which is then brought back to the lab for testing¹⁰.

Such a shift towards digital health solutions may also drive greater healthcare access as nearly 70 percent of the Indian population resides in rural areas, far from specialist doctors and advanced healthcare facilities¹¹.

“I see hospitals waking up to this growing need and saying, ‘I want to be part of the patient’s entire healthcare journey, not just their treatment cycle’,” predicts Suri. This means that instead of competing with new players and only managing one touchpoint like surgery and post-operative care, hospitals would partner with new entrants to create a one-stop health care portal.

These portals would allow patients to easily access services across the entire health care spectrum – from wellness and prevention, screening and treatment through to monitoring. “When hospitals are seen as core to a person’s health, rather than a place to avoid unless you are ill, the care delivery model changes. As a result, hospitals will realise that early detection and wellness while saving them a lot of time and money, is also increasing their consumer/patient base,” he explains.

By being the “custodians of health”, these health service companies save substantial resources by focusing on early detection and wellness, and create a profitable business.

Suri explains that, “As hospitals move from episodic care towards health management, you will see a lot more focus on diagnostics and early detection.”

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Disclaimer: the opinions expressed here are the personal views of Rishi Suri, and do not necessarily reflect Deloitte’s official position.