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Mobile technologies have the potential to transform healthcare by making available all the necessary information at a touch, consequently improving patient care, reducing complexities, and improving efficiencies. Though the use of mobility among Indian healthcare organizations is at a relatively nascent stage, research reports suggest a sea change in terms of focus by corporate healthcare providers, government, etc, in the times to come. Dataquest digs out the key obstacles facing mobility while making inroads in the healthcare set up:
Lack of Standardization: There are common processes which every hospital follows, like consultation in OP, diagnostics in pathology, radiology, etc. But each hospital does the same thing in its own way to achieve the same result and each doctor uses his own experience to treat the patients. On top of it, each hospital has its own unique style of operation. So, the biggest challenge is lack of standard practices across hospitals, causing tweaks to happen.
Cost: Innovation is driven by the US and other developed countries. Subsequently, the products are also manufactured in developed markets, so adjusting costs to the local environment is still a major challenge.
Legacy: Another biggest challenge is legacy systems in older institutions, which operate in silos (with very little integration) and were never built for mobile devices.
Infrastructure requirement: In India, in general, bandwidth is a huge issue. Reliability and costs are prohibitive. The reliability of power is also a question which brings up the difficulties in handling remote healthcare monitoring.
Awareness and acceptability: Even the doctors are not comfortable dispending treatment or advice without meeting patients and vice versa. Patients still prefer the conventional method of in-person meetings.
Culture: Culture is another significant barrier in the adoption of mobile technology. People need to understand that the technological innovations are not replacing the traditional set-up but it is complimenting it.