The covid pandemic taught us two golden lessons: Never take your life for granted, and health is wealth. It also catalyzed the acceleration of the implementation of a lot of changes in the healthcare industry, post covid. Let’s take a look at some of the key modifications.
1. Improved medical infrastructure:
Post covid, most of the hospitals, especially in tier II and tier III cities, are working relentlessly to improve their overall medical infrastructure. When covid-19 hit the world, no one was prepared to combat its deadliest effect. People succumbed to death because of the lack of available beds in the hospitals.
Hence, private as well as government hospitals are taking necessary steps to expand their capacity holdings. Additional units are being added with thousands of beds to fill this gap.
2. Enhancing government-aided health schemes:
The Central government is rolling out several healthcare schemes and programs to enhance the healthcare system in India, making it easily accessible to the general public. With the help of programs like Health for All, Ayushman Bharat, and the National Digital Health Mission, the government is making progress toward achieving universal health coverage. These initiatives, along with subsidised medicine costs, seek to increase access to and affordability of healthcare for the entire nation.
3. Making better use of social media to increase public health awareness:
The government of India and private organisations are trying to harness the benefit of mass communication through social media. The pandemic has brought attention to the general public’s low literacy rate, though. The government of India relentlessly worked towards spreading awareness among people to get themselves vaccinated (both doses) against covid and to keep the covid certificate handy. Improving literacy among the public on health and wellness is being viewed as a priority.
People are increasingly paying more attention to screening and prevention, which support early identification and treatment, as they have begun to take their health more seriously.
4. Improved awareness of health insurance:
Covid – 19 pandemic indeed change the mindset of people about their health. There has been a huge increase in public knowledge of health insurance, which is projected to continue. People are becoming increasingly aware of rare diseases, and there has been an upward trend among women investing in comprehensive healthcare policies, which wasn’t very significant pre-covid. Post-covid also witnessed a change in the thought process of people while selecting a health insurance policy. Earlier, people would buy a healthcare plan that would cover only critical illnesses. However, now people want to invest in a healthcare policy that covers all ailments and offers protection against unknown diseases like covid.
People are also constantly keeping themselves up to date with the knowledge of their overall wellness. As a result, people favour health insurance plans that offer incentives for good health or increased awareness. Post-covid also encouraged people to budget more for the health coverage premium.
5. Usage of technology in healthcare:
Technology became the centre of our lives during the covid pandemic. The entire world population relied on technology to keep themselves connected with the outside world while staying indoors. Post covid, online medical consultations also became popular. This has made remote locations more accessible and may be quite helpful in an emergency. The digital healthcare ecosystem is growing by leaps and bounds, post covid. From using medical apps, and wearable devices to monitor vitals, technology is improving the quality of healthcare in India.
A lot of companies have come out with apps that can be downloaded on smartphones to connect with doctors online for a consultation, store and organise medical records, and even covid certificate download in just a few clicks. Digitisation in the healthcare sector is definitely the new future that looks promising toward making healthcare more accessible and affordable.
6. Patient-centric approach:Changes in Indian Healthcare Sector Post-Covid
Healthcare sector is gravitating towards a more holistic and patient-centric medical approach. Two-way communication is being encouraged in the current times, and the hospitals are taking the feedback provided by the patients seriously to improve the facilities being extended. Technology is being integrated to support long-term care for patients that have extended outside the hospital.
It is just the start. The pandemic has created the groundwork for better healthcare readiness. The criteria for broader integration of technologies as part of normal healthcare design and provision should be the realisation that technologically empowered solutions can be put into practice and work successfully.
