70% of rural & non-metro areas face shortage of diagnostic services: Experts

New Delhi, May 21, 2022: India has made reasonable progress in improving access to last-mile healthcare over the last decade. However, the improved access has not reached across the country equally because of the acute shortage of qualified professionals (fully trained doctors, lab technicians) and the lack of feasible and accessible diagnostic systems. Out of the 140+ crore population in India, only 21.9 crore Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) IDs have been created.

In such a scenario, to fill the existing gaps in primary healthcare, which, in turn, fills the gaps in preventive healthcare, India Health Link (IHL) have introduced a first-of-its-kind connected ‘human-centric’ Phygital (physical+digital) screening ecosystem, which includes the award-winning ATM size ‘made in India’ Health Pod (‘hPod’) for zero assistance automated vitals screening. The Health Pod also complements National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) as it creates personalised Health accounts and IDs in line with the ABHA account.

“The ‘hPod’ offers a non-invasive digitally-integrated ecosystem that enables Primary, Preventive and Predictive Healthcare. This is a self-service, walk-in Health Pod wherein individuals can get their screening done for 22+ health vital parameters including BP, Weight, SpO2, BMI, BMC, Pulse, Temperature, and ECG within 5 minutes followed by an instant report, without any paramedic assistance. The ‘phygital’ ecosystem provides a physical experience of preventive health check-ups supported by its digital interface that maintains users’ health records and provides immediate consultation with certified health professionals based on instant test results. The hPod is HIPPA compliant and features medical devices certified by US FDA, CE, and Neumetric,” says Dr Satyender Goel, Founder & CEO, India Health Link (IHL). 

Dr Swadeep Srivastava Co-Founder & President, India Health Link (IHL), said, “Despite being home to over 70% of Indians, rural and non-metro areas face a significant shortage of high-quality diagnostic services, especially preventive diagnosis. And we wish to promote preventive care culture to reduce the NCD burden in India by enabling doctors’ clinics, nursing homes, corporate workplaces, and communities across India with this ‘phygital’ ecosystem – health Pod (‘hPod’). We believe that this ‘phygital’ ecosystem can address the gaps in primary and preventive healthcare delivery, and simultaneously fill them, making it feasible, affordable and accessible to all Indians irrespective of their socio-economic status.”

Dr Goel further elaborates on the three-prong approach to how the ‘phygital’ ecosystem of IHL is going to fill the primary, preventive, and predictive healthcare delivery gaps in India. 

First, the IHL ‘phygital’ ecosystem complements corporate wellness by filling a massive gap in preventive health screening. Recently, we have seen that due to the lack of preventive screening culture in the Indian healthcare ecosystem, many young professionals associated with corporates have succumbed to cardiac arrest. A Marsh India report reveals that 59% of employees in India are stressed in everyday life. In the absence of preventive screening, it is often too late for employees when they discover the stemming medical conditions that have led to non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

Second, the IHL ‘phygital’ ecosystem is turning out to be patient-friendly as it saves time and money the patients used to spend on traditional diagnosis because, in modern healthcare, the role of early detection and correct diagnosis cannot be overstated. About 70% of all clinical decisions are taken based on diagnostic tests, which require a highly evolved digital platform. To overcome the screening hurdles, the health Pod is being installed in doctors’ clinics and nursing homes to make the preventive screening services feasible and accessible followed by an instant report. 

And third, the IHL ‘phygital’ ecosystem is turning out to be a boon for community settings, especially for rural India, because a significant proportion of India’s population (70%) lives in rural areas where screening is seldom carried out. In rural India, 12% of major illnesses remain untreated mainly due to the unavailability of diagnostic facilities and the ‘Phygital’ ecosystem helps in getting easy access to preventive screening. Today, nearly 60 per cent of all deaths in India are due to NCDs. One of the underlying reasons for the upsurge of NCDs is the lack of preventive and predictive screening. But the IHLs ‘phygital’ ecosystem is poised to fill the massive gap by providing a cost-effective screening facility followed by an instant report delivery mechanism.

What differentiates IHLs Health Pod from its counterparts is its unique ‘phygital’ ecosystem. The blending of the physical and digital models has made ‘phygital’, making it portable and user-friendly. This ‘phygital’ model seems to be promising from the Indian perspective as it will be instrumental in filling the emanating preventive and primary healthcare delivery gaps in India.