While COVID exposed the entire Indian subcontinent to varying technologies and telemedicine, certain limitations still impact its reality.
- Remote care models can work for COVID patients that have a mild infection but for those who have a high impact, these models do not work.
- Many people still are not aware of technology-enabled solutions as either they don’t have access or information.
- There are certain limitations to in-home care and e-consultations (both psychologically and care-wise for a patient) which need to be addressed quickly.
- Patients engaging with the wrong/fraudulent practitioners can also happen when talking about e-consultations.
- E-consultations lack human interaction that sometimes are cues for doctors to provide effective treatment.
- Add these factors to technological constraints and difficulty in operating with technology, that form yet another barrier.
COVID exposed the sad reality of healthcare systems across the globe. We need to include IoT infrastructures and build basics before implementing high-end solutions. These solutions might not be accepted in tier-2 and tier-3 cities as they might have resource issues. The Indian population is exposed to aging population and lifestyle diseases. Therefore, we need to focus on limitations beforehand.
