The rise of healthtech in the post Covid-19 era

The novel Coronavirus or Covid-19 has disrupted the globe and exposed the inefficiencies and vulnerabilities of regions, countries and economies to a global healthcare pandemic. In the past decade we saw technology pervade healthcare to initiate services like telemedicine, e-pharmacy, personal health management, home healthcare, and others but both providers and consumers were slow to adopt these services. Covid-19 has pushed providers and consumers over the tipping point into widespread adoption of these services. The immediate response to this crisis is causing seismic shifts in how and where healthcare services will be consumed by patients.

Covid-19 has put a spotlight on the vibrant healthtech ecosystem and provides a new opportunity to revisit the cycle of patient’s clinical assessment, treatment, and monitoring. The integration of healthcare with technology is blurring the divide and improving patient care services, increasing access, affordability, and lowering costs. The pandemic is accelerating use of technology to radically advance medicine and save lives. It is giving the digital health community the opportunity to leverage the incredible progress over the past several years in fields such as big data analytics, artificial intelligence, remote learning, and data interconnectivity.

On the back of Covid-19 and the rapid acceleration of digital health activity globally the first half of 2020 has seen unprecedented venture funding of $5.4 billion being pushed behind virtual care delivery enterprises. Teladoc Health’s $18.5 billion acquisition of Livongo in the U.S. has also set the tone of what the future holds in this space. The global market for digital health in 2019 was pegged at $350 billion, Asia Pacific is well poised to grow as one of the fastest-growing healthtech markets with potential to reach $80.7 billion by 2025.

Healthcare is one of the fastest growing sectors in India expected to cross $370 billion by 2025. India is emerging as one of the fastest growing digital economies in the world based on the digital adoption index. This phenomenon is also translating into the rise of healthtech as a dominant force in the Indian healthcare ecosystem. Healthtech, which constitutes technological advancements such as medical wearables, telemedicine/telehealth, e-pharmacy, artificial intelligence, electronic health records/medical records, medical applications related to personal health are all poised to grow exponentially in the post Covid-19 era. Healthtech related companies contributed $1.6 billion to the $159 billion Indian healthcare market in 2019.

An estimated 4,800 healthtech companies are leveraging cutting-edge technologies to innovate and help fight the pandemic in India. Between 2014 and March 2020, Indian healthtech startups have secured funding of $2.3 billion across 459 transactions which reflects that technology is poised to strengthen the healthcare ecosystem of India exponentially.

Over the years, growth in the healthcare sector in India has largely been driven by the corporatisation of the sector and the establishment of professionally run, better equipped, large-scale hospital and diagnostic chains. Essentially India’s focus has been to fill its infrastructure gap of hospital beds through the brick and mortar route. Technology spend in the sector has been significantly below other sectors like retail, banking, hospitality, and mobility.

India has nearly 700 million internet users across the country today which is poised to grow to over 974 million users by 2025. Mobile internet usage will be the key driving force of healthtech adoption akin to fintech and edtech in the country. Virtual care is expected to play a significant role in the Indian healthcare ecosystem by 2025 contributing to 15%-20% of primary care consults. The e-pharmacy market is projected to reach 10%-12% of the overall pharmaceutical sales in the next five years and the telemedicine market in India is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 31% for the period 2020-25 to reach $ 5.5 billion. A well-executed digital health ecosystem will enable the portability and aggregation of patient data through multiple services providers may be involved in the origin of this data.

Covid-19 outbreak is a wake-up call for the rise of healthtech-enabled Indian healthcare ecosystem to broad base enablement of healthcare services to its 1.3 billion people. Covid-19 has led to a broader focus of the healthtech sector from targeting only personal health and well-being to strengthening medical infrastructure and providing a more effective response to emergency care. The sector is at a strategic inflection point of digital disruption.

The creation of the omnichannel healthcare delivery model is going to be the most significant impact that healthtech will contribute to the post covid healthcare ecosystem in the country. Patient journey will start online and get directed to the optimal care setting either physically or virtually. Technology will empower improved outpatient care for patients and optimise doctor’s consulting time, plus on demand pathology diagnostics and home healthcare services, coupled with e-pharmacies facilitating the delivery of medicines, will get a boost.

Eventually health technology infusion in the Indian healthcare ecosystem will be the route to enhance patient-centric healthcare accessibility, affordability, and sustainability. The advent of 5G technology in the country is poised to further catalyse this momentum.

Views are personal. The author is executive chairman, Asia Healthcare Holdings.