Feature

Smarter Healthcare

Fortunately, there's an interesting transformation going on right now in the technology world that holds a direct bearing towards the challenges we face

Healthcare is in deep crisis. While this is not news for many countries, what is now different is that the current paths of many healthcare systems around the world will become unsustainable by 2015. This may sound a little contradictory, given the efforts of competent and dedicated healthcare professionals and the promise of genomics, regenerative medicine, and information-based medicine. Yet, it is also true that costs are rising rapidly, quality is poor or inconsistent and access or choice in many countries is inadequate.

These problems, combined with the emergence of a fundamentally new environment driven by the dictates of globalisation, consumerism, demographic shifts, the increased burden of disease, and expensive new technologies and treatments are expected to force fundamental change on healthcare within the coming decade.

India, Going Down Under

India represents the world's second largest populated country. Industry estimates expect around 76 million Indians to be above 65 years of age by 2012, thereby increasing the prevalence of several chronic diseases. As the Indian population ages, demand for healthcare services will only increase. Yet, with a rapidly expanding economy and increasing urbanisation, the prevalence of a number of chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular, diabetes, arthritis and cancer, will also continue to increase in India. Besides, the Indian healthcare industry faces a number of challenges, like affordability and accessibility of healthcare, lack of adequate Government support and lack of awareness regarding quality healthcare services. This really makes the Indian healthcare system increasingly unsustainable.

What We Need

We need to be smarter about the way we deliver healthcare. We need to find ways to provide better care at lower cost. Solving this will go a long way towards preparing a strong foundation for economic growth, while raising the quality of life for the people in the region.

Fortunately there's an interesting transformation going on right now in the technology world that holds a direct bearing towards the challenges we face. Digital and physical infrastructures are converging in ways that make it possible to substantially improve care, while stimulating integration and efficiency across the entire system.

The world's information infrastructure will soon be unable to handle the demand now being asked from it, by the healthcare industry and others, including finance, retail and telecommunications. With the emergence of cloud computing- a model for delivering and consuming IT capabilities as a service- healthcare and other enterprises can gain competitive advantage through economies of scale in archiving, compliance, security and privacy, resiliency, systems integration and management of huge, constantly increasing amounts of data.

Get Smart

Not only the world is becoming smaller and flatter, but also smarter. What this means is that for the first time in history almost anything can become digitally aware and interconnected. We will all begin to transform our systems, operations, enterprises and personal lives to take advantage of a smart planet. This isn't just because we can. It's because we must.

Current and emerging capabilities can enable healthcare organisations to 'think and act in new ways' - from electronic medical records and sensors to process integration to deep, complex analyses within single organisations and across health systems.

A Leading Example

Consider recent advances in the way that doctors monitor premature babies. New technologies enable incubators to capture and analyse a constant stream of hundreds of biomedical parameters. These systems alert doctors to the development of potentially life-threatening conditions long before staff could detect them through routine monitoring.

Innovations are not limited to the Intensive Care Unit. In the emergency room and out in the field, mobile devices are being used to help busy doctors to record symptoms, analyse their severity against a database of clinical information, and then search for and review treatment recommendations or courses of action.

Grab this Opportunity

We have the capability to transform the healthcare system so that information is captured using intelligent devices, shared across the complete spectrum of healthcare practitioners through the integration of secure networks, and available on demand to patients, families, clinicians, researchers, insurers and other stakeholders. Both, individually and collectively, stakeholders have the unique opportunity to harness the changing environment and create more value-focused healthcare.

Not only would this help drive efficiency, reduce the risk of medical errors, save money and lives, but it would also ensure the country maintains a public healthcare system which is the envy of many, and a birthright of our children. Indeed, healthcare systems that fail to address this new environment will likely 'hit the wall' and require immediate and major forced restructuring - a 'lose-lose' scenario for all stakeholders.

The writer is Director, General Business IBM India/South Asia
rnarasim@in.ibm.com