Back in April-May, even a minor illness was worthy of making our hearts pound, to find hospital beds. Most Indian states faced a major challenge in providing access to hospital beds and treatment for COVID or non-COVID patients. 

In the last one year we can argue that COVID-19 has shown the world the power of a strong healthcare system and how the world, including the countries with strongest healthcare systems, was not ready to handle a pandemic outbreak of such a large extent. 

However, maybe it was not under preparedness, rather no country in the world can ever prepare itself for the outbreak of this extent where a virus is mutating, is heavily infectious, has unknown characteristics and involves unlimited ifs and buts. 

While every other country is now vowing to strengthen its healthcare infrastructure, the addition of telemedicine and online consultations is bound to play an extremely important role in the coming years. Born out of necessity, telemedicine did play an important role during the tragedy of the pandemic by bridging the gap between care-givers and care-seekers. 

Sample this: The National Telemedicine Service of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has completed 90 lakh teleconsultations in the country. The last 10 lakh consultations came up in record 17 days, according to the government of India’s announcement on August 9. 

The mammoth initiative, eSanjeevani OPD (which enables delivery of health services to patients in the confines of their homes), was rolled out on 13th of April 2020 during the first lockdown when the OPDs across the country were shutdown.  

At present eSanjeevani OPD is hosting over 430 online OPDs, around 400 of these are speciality and super-speciality online OPDs. Over 60,000 doctors and health-workers across the country have been trained. 

Understanding the importance of telemedicine and online consultations with respect to the ongoing pandemic, the states and Union Territories are consistently working towards strengthening the IT infrastructure within the healthcare delivery set ups. 

This effort, combined with the private players into the segment, will ensure access of specialised health services to the populace living in rural and isolated areas. 

Both government and non-government players are looking to step up the effort by innovating better technologies for streamlining the patient’s consultation experience and by opening newer speciality and super-speciality online OPDs. 

While American Telemedicine Association (ATA) once said that “Telemedicine is the natural evolution of healthcare in the digital world”, it has been fuelled across globe post the outbreak of the pandemic due to several factors including increased consumer and provider willingness, urgent regulatory changes enabling greater access and affordable pricing. 

It is important to mention here that Indian Space Research Organization made a modest beginning in telemedicine in India with a Telemedicine Pilot Project in 2001. Under the project it linked Chennai's Apollo Hospital with the Apollo Rural Hospital at Aragonda village in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh. The model was hailed and proved useful. However, the progress and acceptance remained slow. 

The scenario is changing now, very rapidly. 

According to a report by McKinsey, a research consultancy, the telehealth utilization has stabilized at levels 38 times higher than before the pandemic. The report also found that consumer and provider attitudes toward telehealth have improved since the pre-COVID-19 era.

As per the Rock Health Venture Funding database, the investment in virtual care and digital health more broadly has skyrocketed, fuelling further innovation, with 3 folds the level of venture capitalist digital health investment in 2020 than it had in 2017. 

Several Indian companies are gearing up and have entered the market to capture their market share. Some of them to watch out for include Eka.care, mFine, TATA-1mg, Practo, among many others. 

E-health will certainly reduce burden on hospitals, especially to manage the burden of patients struggling with non-communicable and lifestyle diseases, through real-time consultation with doctors through smartphones, tablets, laptops or PCs.

The report by EY predicts that the telemedicine market in India may reach $5.4 billion by 2025 with a CAGR of 31 per cent. It also forecasts that 15-20 per cent of the healthcare ecosystem is expected to shift to virtual care, across triaging, consults, remote monitoring and home health. 

In the coming years, telemedicine will end up creating an ecosystem where 'virtual care' would end of consists of several arms including tele or online consultation, telepathology, teleradiology and e–pharmacy. It means the patient would be able to consult, order blood tests, diagnostic tests and medicines and then again circle back to consultation — all through the same platform. 

There is a chance to reinvent virtual care models and it’s just a beginning.