Digital connections to improve India’s health

Healthcare in India has long been provided in unconnected silos by individual doctors and in small hospitals. Care is typically initiated by patients who seek treatment in the private sector for which they pay providers an “out-of-pocket” fee.1 Most patients receive either printed or short, hastily handwritten summaries of their care. This serves to tie patients to the provider who knows them, but it means that when they do happen to move and seek another provider there are no reliable means of transferring information. As a healthcare provider I often have to redo blood tests and even re-administer drugs because there are no shared electronic records, paper records may be incomplete or hard to interpret, and I can’t always rely on a patient’s memory. Because of the lack of information patients have little choice but to agree with providers’ management decisions. These duplicate and redundant care practices not only contribute to unnecessary costs for patients but increase avoidable harm and leave people feeling ignored and disconnected from the healthcare system. Public sector providers (those paid by private insurance) have some interest in reducing …