Virtual-first care to transform healthcare: PwC

The shift from brick-and-mortar healthcare centres to virtual-first care during the pandemic has disrupted traditional pharma practices, leading to a transition from medication to holistic healthcare, says a recent study by global consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Technological innovations have helped patients and consumers to understand diseases better and demand higher-quality healthcare services. As per the report, contactless care is gaining momentum and the focus is moving towards reducing and optimising the number of touchpoints between the health system and health seeker, without losing the quality of care.

The ecosystem has enabled access to quality healthcare through digital health, open network and open protocols. This includes decision support to virtual treatment, single engagement with multiple touchpoints, telemedicine to teletherapy and graphical user interface (GUI) to voice user interface (VUI). “Voice-based AI will bring in the next big transformation in healthcare. Such a technological advancement would enhance the upstream value of the healthcare framework and further usher in the ambient era of VUI,” said Rana Mehta, partner and leader healthcare, PwC India.

The report states that consumer preferences are driving the evolution of healthcare delivery models, which creates added value for all the players in the ecosystem, be it capturing of data to use of insights engines and advanced analytics. “The pandemic’s impact compelled healthcare organisations to rethink, reprioritise and reengineer the business models. They are now addressing the emerging challenges for the entire healthcare delivery ecosystem, such as adopting virtual-first healthcare delivery models on a larger scale. This allows for a more efficient, sustainable, technology-enabled and scale-ready healthcare ecosystem. COVID-19 has created a window of opportunities for molecular diagnostics, the potential for which has largely remained untapped till now”, it noted.

The report also says that the government and the private sector are taking various initiatives to increase health insurance penetration, coverage and innovation, universal health insurance coverage through digital exponential technologies; and early detection of illness to continuum of care.