The future of healthcare lies in keeping people out of hospitals

The focus in healthcare has dramatically shifted from having the best hospitals to treat critical conditions to having the best primary care that keeps the pressure off hospital beds. This makes complete sense considering our struggle with the Covid-19 pandemic, where even countries with the most sophisticated healthcare infrastructure crumbled under the unprecedented crisis.

Preventive care (timely doctor visits, prescribed routine checks etc.) can help ease the burden on the medical resources needed for patients in need of critical curative care.

But the path to preventive care has a few challenges: affordability, mindset change towards seeking professional care before it’s too late, and fragmented healthcare awareness.

Making care affordable

The cost of going to a doctor typically starts from Rs 300 per visit in a Tier-2 city and goes upwards of Rs 2,500 in metropolitan areas. Add to that basic blood work and thorough analysis in the way of follow-up consultation with specialists and additional diagnostic tests, and you are looking at a bill that shakes up even those with slightly deeper pockets.

Traditionally health covers do not cover these costs. And people, too, are inclined to buy a cover just for hospital expenses which do not account for several miscellaneous expenses. There is a gap between one’s actual healthcare expenses and what your insurer finally pays. And this monetary gap is not insignificant.

Of all the healthcare expenses an average Indian incurs, over 60% of them are paid out of pocket. In normal circumstances, this throws off someone’s monthly budget; in severe times (such as the pandemic), this can push people into poverty.

Therefore, it becomes really important to keep primary care as affordable as possible.

Building doctor-patient trust

The other roadblock is convincing Indians to visit a doctor. Going for regular check-ups or tests, in the absence of any kind of illness is generally seen as an additional or even an unnecessary expense.

Many also believe that a visit to a doctor means getting overtreated which adds to fear for their health and their pocket.

This mindset needs to change. Getting consistent check-ups from the right doctors, continuing care with the doctor and following the doctor’s advice can help prevent hospitalisation. Another important roadblock to overcome is building the trust between patients and doctors such that people understand that the medical experts are working with the patient’s best interests in mind. Again, to achieve both, you need access to the best doctors with no repercussions on your budget.

Personalising care

Healthcare awareness too remains highly fragmented among the public. To become healthy, one needs much more than just following blanket advice on healthy eating, treatment or even working out at the gym. Every person needs a different health approach, depending on their age, lifestyle and genetics. Preventive care helps make healthcare personal.

Personalised programs give doctors an opportunity to approach diagnostics and drug therapy with a preventive individualized approach to address the problems from its roots. Doctors can use the knowledge of a patient’s custom health profile to make guided decisions regarding the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of any type of current or possible future ailment.

Preventive care also makes sense if you look at people epidemiologically. There is a consistent rise in the prevalence of chronic and non-communicable ailments such as hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Preventive care enables the process of targeting such illnesses early on and starting the concerned patient on specialised programs. This could be especially beneficial to reverse common illnesses such as diabetes, which has ceased to be an elderly disease and affects more young people. For instance, one in six people with diabetes in the world are from India. Moreover, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the age, at which type-2 diabetes is diagnosed, is steadily declining. The disease is becoming prominent amongst people between the ages 25 and 34 in both urban and rural regions.

Preventive care is the most sustainable path toward achieving good health across the board.

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