“We need user-friendly tech to truly transform healthcare”

For a long time, the healthcare sector in India was lagging way behind many other industries in terms of embracing transformative technologies.

- Soma Tah

There are many reasons behind it, but predominantly due to the reluctance of health professionals to adopt technologies. Sometimes, the solutions were not very user-friendly, and people felt that they were hard to use.

“I feel that technology needs to be user-friendly so that onboarding users becomes easier. Doctors or health practitioners, who are going to use those technologies need to be comfortable with them. This will also help the allied professionals including the Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers in providing care to the patients in rural and remote areas,” said Dr Randeep Guleria, Director, AIIMS, New Delhi, during his special address in the PCQuest HealthTech Forum.

• COVID: A game-changer for HealthTech adoption

But things changed drastically in the COVID era. COVID pushed the frontiers as far as HealthTech or technology in healthcare is concerned. “Government initiatives and programs such as e-Sanjeevani and Ayushman Bharat are instances, where technology has been used to provide care to a large number of Indians. This led to a lot of advances to build on further,” said Dr Guleria.