Question: What is the importance of rural market penetration through telemedicine?
– Dr Ajay Lulla, Udaipur
| Tarun Katiyar |
Answer: The advances in medical science and bio-medical engineering on one hand and telecommunication and information technology on the other are offering wide opportunities for improved health care in India.
The factors that are likely to drive the growth of telemedicine in India are the following:
- Inaccessibility of care for majority of the population
- A severe shortage of skilled and qualified doctors in the rural areas
- High cost of healthcare, particularly for secondary and tertiary care
- Very high patient volume in the rural areas compared to the number of doctors, hospital beds and trained medical staff
- Problem of retaining doctors in the rural areas
- Specialist doctors cannot be retained at rural areas as they will be professionally isolated and become obsolete
- Widespread availability of mobile network
Question: What are the streams of hospital operations?
– Dr Malay Babu, Bengaluru
Answer: The main streams of hospital operations which need to be streamlined for smooth working, are:
- Patients stream
- Staff stream
- Patients’ sample stream
- Drug stream
- Material stream
- Visitors stream
- Information stream
Question: Why should we rethink on our healthcare system?
– Srividya, Chennai
Answer: Factors leading to rethink on the healthcare system are:
- Prevention is still not enough
- Unequal provisions still exist
- Too labour intensive
- Costly medical facilities
- Fragmented market
Question: What are the main challenges in setting up a healthcare facility in a rural area?
– Manish Jha, Ranchi
Answer: Main challenges that we face while setting up a hospital in a rural are:
- Funding of healthcare projects
- Day-to-day operation facilities
- Affordability of care
- Availability of healthcare staff
- Access to essential drugs and medicine
Question: What are the barriers in infrastructure development in rural areas?
– Dhani Malhotra, Punjab
Answer: Infrastructure has always been a barrier to the growth of the Indian healthcare industry. Poor energy and transport infrastructure has traditionally posed a problem for companies. Some areas lack basic hotel facilities, preventing reach and penetration. With the government gradually increasing investment in infrastructure, the situation is improving, but it is still seen as an investment opportunity in the country. Lack of education and knowledge leads to misunderstanding among the local public towards infrastructure development in the rural area.