Cloud-First Approach for Value-Based Care
Exploring how a cloud-first approach is transforming value-based care in India's healthcare sector.
Hi there!
This week on Eximius Echo, we dive into the cloud-first approach that's revolutionising value-based care in India's healthcare sector. As the industry shifts from volume-based to patient-centric care, cloud technology is playing a crucial role in enhancing patient outcomes, improving inter-department collaboration, and enabling remote patient monitoring. This transformation is not just a technological upgrade but a significant step towards more effective, holistic healthcare solutions across the country.
If you’ve not heard of us, Eximius is a pre-seed stage fund focusing on FinTech, SaaS, Consumer, Online Media & Gaming, and HealthTech. You can find out more here. This newsletter is an attempt to share ideas, insights, and context within the realms of our chosen sectors. Let’s dive in.
The Need for Value-based Care
“The days of volume-based care are gone.” Such is the mandate in the Indian healthcare sector as it undergoes a massive shift in philosophy. Propelled by the government, the sector seeks to shed its monolithic and impersonal systems in favour of the more patient-centric philosophy – ‘value-based care’. In contrast to the former model, value-based care is more centred on the actual health outcomes and keeping the patient’s well-being at the core of the approach rather than just the procedures performed. In this model, the quality of care and the treatment’s efficacy are the most important variables.
With increased governmental impetus, organisations nationwide have also expanded their focus to increasingly digitise their offerings for this pivot. Unlike volume-based, procedural care, value-based care cannot be isolated or dependent on facility visits but rather needs to be administered holistically. FY23 saw expenditure on technology in the sector rise for the third consecutive year to reach $2.7 billion. Digitisation was the biggest focus for the industry with digital tech spending doubling since FY 2019 and new-age technologies like cloud, IoT, etc. growing at 20%.
Cloud specifically is a massive blessing for the healthcare industry. Due to the modular nature of the technology, it brings a multitude of use cases for the industry. Aside from enabling more nimbleness and greater cost-effectiveness, cloud solutions can also enable healthcare providers to expand their offerings and embrace this pivot at a faster pace. In this post, we will cover a few key ways in which the technology is slated to revolutionise the industry as a whole.
Use-cases for a Cloud-First Approach to Value-Based Care
1) Building Comprehensive Patient Histories
In the existent systems, patient records are stored in multiple formats in a manner which renders them opaque. In this form, the data becomes unusable which can end up costing healthcare providers 15-25% of their business and $100 per dirty record. Aside from the business risk, it also hampers their ability to provide the right kind of care to their patients. Considering that 140,000 people in India die annually from misdiagnosis, this opacity creates a major blind spot for healthcare providers.
Due to how malignant this deficiency is, this is where cloud solutions such as central repositories can be the most effective. This enables the storage of all patient data in centralised servers where they can be used by any party.
In addition to greater ease of storage, pivoting to a cloud-based system can also enable healthcare providers to use this data more effectively. Such insight can be critical both during the diagnosis and after treatment. In the latter case, this can help them prevent readmissions (which cost the industry $26 billion annually) by identifying at-risk patients early.
2) Improved Inter-Department Collaboration
A modular centralised storage is also immensely helpful in facilitating inter-department communication as well. Whenever the patient is referred to a specialised treatment, there is not only an information asymmetry between all departments, but the efforts of maintaining the patient’s treatment records are doubled.
Using cloud solutions not only takes care of the latter problem but also ensures that all records of interactions with other departments are stored on the same platform. This includes not just the treatment provided, but also their thoughts on the patient. Thereby boosting inter-department relations and clarity in patients’ treatments.
3) Omnichannel Communication with Patients
The onset of teleconsultations and virtual-care platforms has brought a seismic shift in the mediums of healthcare. In a survey by McKinsey, 55% of patients believed that they received better care via digital means. This indicates a monumental shift in customer preferences and the facilitation of holistic treatment journeys.
To meet these demands, institutions are now launching virtual platforms that help them engage with their existing patients better post-treatment. Apollo, for instance, uses Google Cloud to power its patient-facing care navigation service – AskApolo. This platform enables patients to book physical appointments and avail of online consultations. Additionally, the platform is also capable of answering medical queries to aid patients in a more personal manner.
4) Remote Patient Monitoring
In keeping with the above approach of omnichannel healthcare, a lot of organisations are looking increasingly to incorporate hospital-at-home models into their offerings. Within these, monitoring the activities of patients remotely and tracking their vitals are key functionalities that will prove pivotal.
Medical facilities use apps and wireless devices to maintain a constant vigil on the patients’ key physiological indicators and provide a stream of real-time information that enables treatment providers to intervene at the necessary stages to ensure that the patients remain on the path to recovery. As ailments get more complicated and patients demand a more responsive model of healthcare, this approach becomes increasingly important. It is also an effective approach for treating chronic diseases effectively.
A lot of tech providers even offer customised modules which allow easier integrations with popular health-tracking devices, provide greater depth in the metrics tracked, set up critical triggers for physiological indicators, and allow easier two-way communication between the patient and healthcare providers.
Conclusion
Healthcare is one of the most important sectors for the country as a whole. Aside from being valued at over $372 billion, it also employs 7.5 million people with the mission of making our country as healthy as possible. While the industry has been operating on the philosophy of volume-based care for a long time, the past few years have seen a hard pivot to the far more patient-centric philosophy of value-based care. As chronic and lifestyle diseases increase, there is a need to provide constant engagement and 360-degree treatment to patients, which tech can only facilitate.
Aside from policy changes, the sector is also spending exponentially on new technologies that can enhance organisational efficiencies and drive better patient outcomes. Herein, a cloud-first approach is a major part of the sector’s focus as it looks to create new offerings to serve patients better.
Solutions built on the back of this technology can be a real game changer for the industry as a whole while enabling healthcare interactions in an unprecedented manner.
To anyone building something in this space, we’d love to connect! Please reach out to us at pitches@eximiusvc.com. We are looking for omnichannel, value-based care platforms to solve large problems plaguing the country such as pain management, dental care, cardiac issues, etc.