India's health care digital transformation

Authored by - Anukriti Chaudhari, entrepreneur building AI applications in clinical care and research, in collaboration with Tata Memorial Hospital.

The artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is upon us, and our ability to harness it will determine how effectively the nation can deliver quality medical services at scale. The current health care ecosystem, despite its immense potential, faces critical structural challenges that can only be solved through technology-driven innovation.

Digital health care(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The urgency of digital transformation in Indian health care becomes clear when you consider three critical gaps that affect millions of patients daily.

The daily care crisis: In most health care settings across India, there's no systematic log of patient interactions, treatments administered, or outcomes achieved. Imagine a patient visiting multiple doctors for a chronic condition—each physician starts from scratch, often repeating tests and treatments because previous records are either unavailable or incomprehensible. This isn't just inefficient; it's dangerous.

The population scale blindness: As one doctor candidly observed, "I have a bat, there are balls coming my way, and I am hitting them. I do not know if they are sixers or catch-out." We're treating patients without any feedback loop to understand what treatments work for our population. Unlike other countries that use health data to refine treatment protocols, we operate in an information vacuum.

The protocol problem: We're following medical protocols designed for western populations with different genetic profiles, disease patterns, and health care infrastructure. While other regions conduct trials and adapt treatments to their unique contexts, we lack the foundational data infrastructure to develop India-specific protocols. This one-size-fits-all approach may be costing lives.

Recently, I visited one of the country's largest hospitals and discovered something remarkable: meticulously maintained medical records dating back to 1991. The catch? Every single page was on paper, filed in towering cabinets that told the story of decades of analogue health care.

Health care isn't just complex - it's uniquely complex. Every specialty has its own vocabulary, workflows, and requirements. Each hospital operates like an independent ecosystem. Unlike other industries where experimentation is encouraged, health care mistakes can be fatal, making stakeholders naturally conservative about change.

Yet transformation is entirely within our reach, and we need look no further than our own achievements for proof.

The west has successfully digitised health care, though their motivations - insurance requirements, regulatory compliance, and different cost structures - differ from ours. More compellingly, India has already achieved world-class digital transformation in multiple sectors. Our passport system is fully digitised and efficient. Land records have transitioned from dusty government offices to online portals. Our airports deliver experiences that rival global standards. We've built an identity and payments infrastructure that's arguably more advanced than anything in the West.

Achieving health care digital transformation requires unwavering commitment to three fundamental principles:

1. Absolute responsibility - In health care, there's no room for the "move fast and break things" mentality. Data security cannot be compromised - patient information is sacred. Answers must be accurate - a wrong medication recommendation could be fatal. Systems must be reliable - downtime isn't just inconvenient, it's dangerous. This level of responsibility demands a different approach to product development, with extensive testing, robust security measures, and fail-safe mechanisms built into every system.

2. True productisation - A health care product must be simultaneously useful, usable, and universal. Useful means solving real problems - helping patients understand their treatment plans, building trust between doctors and patients, and eliminating mundane administrative tasks that consume valuable medical time. Usable means creating delightful experiences through voice control, intuitive interfaces, and seamless integration into existing workflows. Universal means building solutions that work across specialties, in both new and legacy hospital systems, and for both clinical consultations and surgical procedures. This trinity of requirements makes health care productisation exceptionally challenging but absolutely essential.

3. Indigenous innovation - Perhaps most critically, we must resist the temptation to simply transplant Western solutions to Indian soil. Our constraints and opportunities are fundamentally different. We operate with a 1:1600 doctor-patient ratio compared to 1:200 in the US. Our health care budget per patient is measured in hundreds of rupees while theirs is measured in thousands of dollars. Patient consultations are shorter. We deal with high ambient noise, limited computing infrastructure, and the beautiful complexity of multiple languages and accents.

These aren't bugs to be fixed - they're features of our health care landscape that must be embraced in our design thinking. Successful solutions will emerge from entrepreneurs who spend time in the field, understand these realities intimately, and design specifically for the Indian context.

Digital transformation of Indian health care represents one of the most important technological challenges of our generation. The infrastructure exists. The talent exists. The need certainly exists. What's required now is the collective will to tackle this challenge with the seriousness and commitment it deserves.

This article is authored by Anukriti Chaudhari, entrepreneur building AI applications in clinical care and research, in collaboration with Tata Memorial Hospital.