AyusCare, Oracle is Envisioning the Future of Healthcare Industry with Cloud
An interaction with Vishnu Shashank, CEO of AyusCare where he talks about the future of the Healthcare and the use of technology in the industry along with the upcoming opportunities for startups in India.
What trends do you foresee in 2019 in Indian healthcare?
Buoyed by rising incomes, increased health awareness and greater access to insurance, the healthcare industry in India is on a great growth path. Per IBEF, by 2022, the Indian healthcare market is expected to reach US $372 bn by 2022.
2019 will be the year when we actually see significant momentum for the Government’s ambitious Ayushman Bharat healthcare scheme. This is by far the largest government-funded healthcare program targeting more than 500 million beneficiaries with a budget of US$ 4.40 billion under the Union Budget 2019-20. I am confident 2019 will be the best-ever year for Indian healthcare.
How are emerging technologies transforming healthcare delivery in India?
I expect a lot more technology play in healthcare for Ayushman Bharat to fully succeed. To ensure last-mile healthcare delivery faster, we’ll continue to see more widespread use of Artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML), internet of things (IoT), blockchain and digital assistants, amongst others, in the coming months.
Take the case of fake medicines for example. If we look at it from a macro level, technologies like blockchain have great potential to ensure transparency in the medicine supply chain process. Blockchain is not only used to eliminate spurious drugs, but also to reduce medicine wastage due to cold-chain inadequacies etc. It’s interesting to note that NITI Aayog is already piloting such an initiative, in partnership with Oracle India and Apollo Hospitals. Technology-led initiatives like these benefit the entire ecosystem.
How big is the opportunity for healthcare technology startups in India?
India is now home to a health-tech ecosystem, with a number of startups focusing on emergency services, pathology, preventive healthcare, analytics, amongst other things. According to various industry estimates, there are close to 5000 active health-tech startups in India today. This number is bound to grow further in the next couple of years, because the push towards digitalization has made healthcare accessible for thousands of people, leading to a surge in the opportunities for health-tech startups to offer quality and affordable healthcare.
What’s the USP of AyusCare?
Per MeitY’s recent report: Adoption of Electronic Health Records - a Roadmap for India, there is an urgent need for using a robust, secure electronic health records (EHR) system. We all know the importance of a patient’s medical history for future diagnosis and treatment. Given the fact that most doctors and patients don’t have an organized method of preserving medical records (especially in suburban and rural areas), we decided to build a user-friendly connected health record management system. With rising healthcare awareness, both patients and doctors want to exert control over the data and insist on the ability to easily access it as needed. This is where AyusCare comes into the picture and fills the gap. With our solution, patients can not only view and manage their diagnostic reports, but artificial intelligence (AI) based analytics will assist doctors in providing better treatment on time.
Our company’s vision is to help create a healthier tomorrow by applying time and cost-effective measures with the right amalgamation of technology. We provide a comprehensive, single, unified view to three key
stakeholders in the healthcare continuum - hospitals, patients and doctors. With our AyusCare app, doctors can get access to the medical reports as well as compare them with the patient’s history to rightly understand a patient’s progress and the effectiveness of the medication on their mobile phones anytime, anywhere.
What’s your growth plan for 2019? What role will cloud play in your next growth journey?
We are expanding our presence to many more states in India, starting with Maharashtra and Kerala. We are building awareness in the suburbs with high touch engagement, including events and roadshows, to make people understand the importance of high-quality diagnostic reporting.
From an innovation perspective, the next significant growth for us will be mainly in the field of AI. We are bringing in a layer of intelligence by analyzing past health readings of an individual. Through this we are gearing up to introduce customized health reports which will help in gaining better insights on one's health.
How can large technology companies collaborate with start-ups to enrich the healthcare industry ecosystem?
Cloud technology has become a great leveller when it comes to tech innovation. A small startup can get going with minimal resources and grow the business as it gains market acceptance. Almost all large technology companies have recognized this and have set up incubators for grooming startups with experienced mentors and dedicated funds.
Apart from this, large corporates are also collaborating with startups by setting up standards for data interchange and exploring opportunities through technologies like IoT and blockchain.
How is Oracle helping you realize your dream of last-mile healthcare delivery?
The healthcare industry is possibly the most mission-critical industry, where even a slight delay can lead to loss of lives. AyusCare’s goal is to empower a medical practitioner with the right information at the right time, so they can make better decisions and Oracle has played a very important role in helping us achieve our goal. We use the modern, enterprise-grade, highly secure Oracle Cloud infrastructure and we’ve realized consistent performance delivery, scalability with zero downtime.
In addition to this, we are registering significant cost savings with Oracle’s flexible pricing model for cloud. We are looking at innovating each day and aiming to offer newer solutions to our customers - such as advanced analytics capabilities.
