Indian Govt Braces Digital Solutions for Healthcare Labor Scarcity

The healthcare industry in India has been battling the complex issue of labor shortages since the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020. For healthcare providers in India, this difficulty combined with the urgent need to improve employee satisfaction and retention constitutes a serious and ongoing problem. To promote innovation and create cutting-edge applications and scalable solutions in the healthcare industry, the Indian government declared its intention to establish three Centers of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence (AI), a move towards digital healthcare solutions to address medical staff shortages (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Digital healthcare: the future

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Challenges of Healthcare Professionals

The healthcare industry is in dire need of medical professionals to cater to the needs of the growing Indian population. Healthcare workers, including doctors, nurses, and technicians who perform critical tests, are under immense workload pressure.

In addition to dealing with unbalanced staff-to-patient ratios, they also have to deal with data alerts that can be overwhelming and ineffective workflows that take up valuable time and take their focus away from the most important part of their jobs, which is providing patient care.

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AI Integration in Healthcare Supports Effective Patient Care

Data-driven digital technology can play a vital role in helping to overcome workforce difficulties and provide high-quality patient care. Innovative technologies like telemedicine have a great deal of potential in the healthcare industry, just as they have favorably touched many aspects of our daily lives and provided solutions to complex difficulties.

To promote innovation and create cutting-edge applications and scalable solutions in the healthcare industry, the Indian government declared its intention to establish three Centers of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Access to high-quality healthcare will be improved by the Indian government's focus on building additional educational institutions and boosting the nation's pool of qualified medical personnel.

These actions provide excellent long-term solutions to the shortage of healthcare workers in India. But in the interim, it's important to consider using digital health technology to meet India's healthcare demands.

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Collaboration of Digital Technologies with India's Health Needs

In India, there is a pressing need to close the gap between rural and urban areas by providing constant access to acute treatment. Advancements in digital technology have made it feasible to remotely monitor patients from central hubs.

For example, tele-ICUs are supervised by a group of intensivists and allow patients to get critical care support no matter where their hospital is physically located. Modern medical technology increases the reach and productivity of healthcare workers, such as radiologists, pathologists, nurses, and others.

The foundation for digital technology's broad use is already in place since the COVID-19 pandemic forced its use in healthcare. It is now necessary for Indian healthcare executives to remain committed to funding these digital solutions in order to address the issues that their workers are facing.

In order to handle patient flow and streamline daily processes for physicians, nurses, technicians, and administrators to book appointments and serve patients, Indian healthcare facilities can keep investing in AI-driven solutions.

As per the most recent edition of the Future Health Index India 2023, a noteworthy 82% of healthcare executives have indicated that they are currently utilizing digital health technology or have plans to do so in order to alleviate the consequences of staff shortages. This figure outperforms the majority of the countries surveyed and exceeds the global average of 56%.

To lessen the effects of labor scarcity, Indian healthcare executives are also choosing to use a range of additional technological options. Cloud-based technology (49%), key decision support technology (49%), communications technology (49%), and tech solutions that interface with non-hospital environments (48%) constitute nearly half of the respondents who either use or plan to utilize them.

Moving Towards Digital Solutions in Healthcare

In conclusion, there is a lot of promise in India's new trend of using digital technologies to address important healthcare issues. In order to prioritize providing the best possible care for patients, both short- and long-term solutions must be implemented in concert with the healthcare industry and the government.

This coordinated effort will result in a more robust and effective healthcare system in India by addressing staffing shortages and improving the general healthcare experience for patients and healthcare workers.

Reference:

1. Digital healthcare: the future - (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35928188/)

Source-Medindia