Digital Health in India: Unlocking Access, But Challenges Remain

Telemedicine digital health also known as telehealth encompassing digital consultations over video calls, phone conversations, and secure messaging that users can conveniently access using their computer or smartphone. TeleHealth helps in bridging the gap and provide healthcare access from India's small rural areas and underserved areas, where the doctor-to-patient ratio is still incredibly low. TeleHealth services are helping to lower healthcare inequality by offering prompt access to specialty and general practitioner appointments not available in their area and long travel has become a limitation. Our Sustainable Development Goal 3, which seeks to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, telehealth is one of its main components in promoting universal health coverage. It helps relieve some of the strain on India's already overburdened physical health system by moving follow-up care and routine to virtual visits without incurring heavy cost. This enables more timely and consistent medical care for individuals who might otherwise find difficulty accessing it. Yet, this innovation rings complex challenges around equity, privacy, and sustainability.

India's National TeleHealth Service, the eSanjeevani platform launched in 2020 to address major deficiencies in healthcare access all over the country, provided over 37 crore consultations conducted and onboarded over 2 lakh healthcare professionals by 2025. eSanjeevani has swiftly become the world's leading TeleHealth platform for primary care, offering free, fair, and remote medical advice. eSanjeevani not just improves healthcare delivery but also greatly contributes to national health equity promotion.

Telehealth is now a part of broader digital health programme such as Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission (ABDM) which aims to promote teleconsultation platforms, e pharmacy and data driven care. High levels of satisfaction have been reported by consumers mostly as a result of better interactions with doctors, user friendly interface and easy to access. A study carried out by AIIMS Rajkot, showed TeleHealth's critical contribution in far-off and rural and underserved areas where medical resources are scarce. Notably, 90 percent of people saw availability and respectful encounters as well as good communication with doctors, around 80 percent believed the platform was user-friendly, and 70 percent said access was simple for general health problems. However, majority of them called were young patients, participation from older people were less pointing out difficult health problems or insufficient digital literacy and internet access in rural areas.

Notwithstanding the great development, there are still a number of obstacles, despite rapid adoption, only about 37% of rural households have reliable internet access, and digital literacy remains a major hurdle, with just 13% of rural Indians comfortable with digital devices. Many studies pointed out that a significant number of India's rural residents are still not aware and utilize the service due to lack of awareness, lack dependable internet access and have poor levels of digital literacy. Barriers of poor insurance coverage, high doctor fees often restrict the broad and fair uptake of Telehealth services as stated by doctors. Targeted investments in digital infrastructure, in-expensive internet access, and local digital literacy initiatives are needed to solve this divide. Digital disparity of around 57% beneficiaries are women, but only about 12% are elderly, indicating a need for more inclusive strategies for the elderly to reduce disparity.

Source: Digital India

The government’s 2020 Telemedicine Practice Guidelines were pivotal in legitimizing and standardizing remote consultations, fostering greater trust among both patients and providers. However, there are several challenges and limitations in implementing these guidelines such as low digital skills, poor network connections and lack of technology knowledge among the healthcare staff. There are also concerns about legal jurisdiction for teleconsultations, insurance coverage, data ownership, and privacy of recordings that goes public. Until we prioritize patient privacy care standards, verify the identity, obtain their consent, we cannot fully utilize its benefits highlighted.

Researcher pointed out that just not telehealth, wearable health technologies including smartwatches and fitness trackers also have made a measurable impact on management of chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension in urban areas of India by early detection of issues, and quick monitoring, that resulted in better health outcomes due to real-time data sharing between patients and providers. The users showed a higher behavioural intention with the acceptance and adoption of these devices for healthcare management in India, however there were privacy concerns, issues with data accuracy remain ongoing concerns as adoption increases.

Using strong legal systems, moral guidelines, and safe technology infrastructure, issues with patient data confidentiality and cybersecurity must be resolved. For the ongoing expansion of TeleHealth and wearable devices, making sure data protection regulations are observed and establishing public confidence are absolutely critical.

For TeleHealth to permanently fit into India's healthcare system, it must be integrated into current public health initiatives and clinical processes. For that, healthcare professionals need to get trained, and have to standardize the telemedicine guidelines. Adding on, building patient trust and awareness—especially in rural and elderly populations—is crucial for cultural acceptance and patient involvement. Efficient grievance redressal and streamlined insurance systems are needed to build trust and ensure affordability.

TeleHealth marks a revolutionary change in India's healthcare scene, providing creative answers to access, equality, and efficiency challenges of decades. By utilizing digital technologies, India has made great progress toward universal health coverage and better health results especially for its most vulnerable groups. Sustaining and expanding the advantages of TeleHealth requires ongoing investment in digital infrastructure, strong legislative frameworks, and inclusive health policies. This will help to ensure that quality healthcare is really available to all.