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Connected health to redefine India’s journey as an economic superpower

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Harmeet
New Update

NEW DELHI, INDIA: A new report launched by Accenture titled ‘Delivering e-Health in India - Analysis and Recommendations' focuses on the access to healthcare systems in India as per global and regional standards.

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The report highlights the current status of the Indian healthcare industry and its growth in the past decade. It identifies that greater healthcare funding cannot guarantee better access to the healthcare facilities, unless accompanied by powerful and innovative interventions to improve the healthcare ecosystem.

While the system has evolved in India over the past 50-60 years, the coverage and service levels of the entire public health ecosystem remains inadequate. Indian healthcare system continues to suffer from underfunding and poor governance which have created significant inequities in providing basic health care.

While India's healthcare expenditure has increased in the past and the government plans to increase the same further to nearly 2.5 percent of the GDP in the 12th five year plan, India has invested less public money in health than most comparable countries. India's overall health spending does reach 6 percent of the GDP but most of that is private money.

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Major challenges hampering the growth of the healthcare sector and therefore the delivery of healthcare services are:

Substantial gaps in healthcare infrastructure: Hospital bed density in India has stagnated at 0.9 per 1000 population since 2005 and falls significantly short of WHO laid guidelines of 3.511 per 1000 patients' population. Moreover, there is a huge inequity in utilization of facilities at the village, district and state levels with state level facilities remaining the most strained.

Low healthcare insurance service coverage leads to high levels of out of pocket spending: Nearly 80 percent of spend in India is out-of pocket, primarily due to with extremely limited insurance coverage, both personal and government funded. Research has shown that the proportion of medical and healthcare expenditure in overall personal consumption has risen considerably over the years.

Medical manpower remains inadequate: India is currently known to have approximately 600,000 doctors and 1.6 million nurses. This translates into one doctor for every 1,800 people. The recommended WHO guidelines suggest that there should be 1 doctor for every 600 people. This translates into a resource gap of approximately 1.4 million doctors and 2.8 million nurses. There is also a clear disparity in the man power present in the rural and urban areas.