Joy Chakraborty, COO, Hinduja Hospital
The 2021-2030 decade will witness a big leap in terms of care delivery. Technology will play crucial role in various aspects, like giving care remotely (telemedicine), AI enabled care, use of IoT etc.
With the concept of affordable healthcare, hospitals will become learner, establish community hospitals, mobile / digital clinics and provide virtual care in tier II, tier III town / cities and rural areas, which will be connected to the bigger hospitals. The patients would become more aware and expect better care with quick turnaround time and transparency.
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning would play an important role in providing care to fill the gap of skilled workforce to a very large extent. There will be a gradual shift from curative to preventive healthcare not just for health care providers but also for patients, who would behave like consumers in the next decade.
Role of regulatory bodies will become more robust. Price control, quality outcomes, safety, compliance, general outcomes being published in public domain would also gain importance and become mandatory for better care delivery.
“Universal Healthcare Coverage” for all would be accomplished by the end of the next decade so that all the sustainable goals agreed upon by the country are achieved.
Lastly, I would say that taking lessons from the current and the last decade, we need to have smart hospitals, smart taskforces etc. all in place at all times in the country who would work for better management of epidemics or pandemic in future if any, so that the infrastructure and care giving process is handled in far better way taking lessons from the current pandemic.