Impact of Social Media on India Healthcare

October 19th 2011

Ne eraj Kakkar M anish Sh yam n achnani

Social Media for Healthcare

Social media has varying definitions; the simplest is Content for the people, by the people. Social media is available in multiple forms for varying end use, but with the same intent of sharing user generated content with the user communities. Face book, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, RSS etc., the list is endless.

As patien t b ecome con su mer s u se of social media b ecomes n ecessar y

Referral Management using social media

Referral management is the biggest part of our healthcare value chain.
With no referral management system a patient has to queue up and go through the entire registration process at the referred hospitals (State run agencies) This has caused excessive patient loads at the district level hospitals. A referral management system based on social media principles where everyone participates can help solve this problem.

The inroads into healthcare are being made recently. WebMD , Mayo Clinic , ZocDoc and many more services are helping people collaborate and connect, with a simple motto, to help solve their medical problems and leveraging technology to provide better connect and care .
Social media is not an extension of the website or online presence; its an interaction and discussion not just the presence. The relationship between Doctors and patients have been personal, but with globalization and urbanization the connect is being lost, and social media can restore it.

Health 2.0
Health 2.0 is a term coined to integrate healthcare, web2.0 and ehealth. Health 2.0 focuses between collaboration between patients, doctors, government agencies etc. Developed nations have taken a huge leap in health 2.0 space with care coordination, Health Information exchanges, Electronic Medical Records etc. India with its unique demographics and healthcare delivery system can leverage the Health 2.0 features of collaboration.

Social media is meant for collaboration and making audience participatory, Health 2.0 does the same.

Impact of Social media on Rural India

Healthcare in India is skewed in favor of urban population; over 700+ millions of people are deprived of primary healthcare. Over 70% of specialist healthcare providers are located in urban areas thus depriving rural areas of specialized services. Social media can help bridge this gap by enabling virtual presence.

Wellness Management
Growing middle class and rising income are the biggest drivers of the healthcare IT market. Young Indian consumer needs access to their data on the go.

Social media can be used for non-invasive and non-surgical diagnosis and treatment. Multiple doctors from across the nations can collaborate and share their expertise to diagnose the rural population.
Social media can substantially reduce the cost of healthcare for rural population. More over with advent in ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and freely available social media platforms the initial setup cost is negligible. Rural population also faces the larger challenges in terms of epidemics and disconnects occurring during natural calamities, social media can answer these challenges.

With the advent of 3G and smart mobile devices, healthcare applications apps are finding it way to Indian consumers. Wellness management via social media is primary restricted to Urban Indian, but with rapid urbanization wellness management will be the key. Social Media has proved its merit in developed nations as a wellness management tool.

Social media is for Masses as well as Classes

Social media fits the Indian healthcare pyramid from rural to urban healthcare system. It finds effective usage in primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare system. Social media can fills in the gaps and address challenges that exist in Indian Healthcare , below is a quick snapshot of the same.

Stakeholders for Social Media

Indian Population Government Hospitals Medical education providers Healthcare Providers / Doctors Ministry of Health Department of IT State Governments Heath Insurance companies

Once all these stakeholders are on a single platform, along with regulatory body, access to healthcare for every citizen will become reality. India can take a big leap forward and establish Health Information Exchange, leveraging programs like UID (Unique Identification).
Social media can play the role of facilitator and enabler in achieving this.

Adopting social media would need support from regulators because of increased fear of legal consequences arising from social media usage.
Guidelines on using social media for healthcare needs to be formulated for leveraging the true benefits of social media.

Social media is ab ou t con ver sation

Diseases Management using Social Media

As Indians live more affluent lives and adopt unhealthy western diets that are high in fat and sugar, the country is experiencing a rise in lifestyle diseases such as hypertension, cancer, and diabetes, which is reaching epidemic proportions
Over the next 5-10 years, lifestyle diseases are expected to grow at a Faster rate than infectious diseases in India, and to result in an increase in cost per treatment.

Improving access to Information

Enabling education for Health Workers
Rural India is highly dependent on health workers with majority of doctors located in urban India, providing right education to healthcare workers is the key to improve healthcare outcomes. Social media today is the best tool available to provide education to these health workers. Social media is able to share rich media content and ability to share videos, images and live chats and video conferencing.
Education provided via social media is highly interactive and is in a conversational mode rather than a printed textbook. So a doctor sitting in Mumbai can start a hangout in Google plus and health workers from across the country join in to learn about their relevant topics. Social media is highly cost effective; all it takes is an internet enabled computer for health workers.

Wellness programs targeted at the workplace, where many sedentary jobs are contributing to an erosion of employees health, could help to reduce the rising incidence of lifestyle diseases. Employers need to adopt social media to promoted wellness by creating challenges and adopting healthy lifestyle behavior before the damage is done.
Diabetes is growing at rapid pace. It is estimated that almost 41 million Indians are diabetic, and that figure is expected to reach 73.5 million by 2025 and estimated cost of $ 30 billion in 2025. This could be prevented if we adopt disease management principles. Numerous social media games and phone applications address these issues.

Social media for Doctors

There are a number of social networking sites such as Sermo, Ozmosis and SocialMD that offer physicians the chance to connect with others in their profession for knowledge sharing, networking and support.
These sites present safe communities for physicians to share opinions and interact in a guarded environment.

Private hospitals drivers for adoptions

Private healthcare groups are early adopters of technology and social media.

Indian healthcare system is based on Out of pocket system hence the usage of social media will grow exponentially as Indian consumers look for the best possible treatment.
Early adaptation will help maintain the competitive advantage to these companies.

Indian government has no clear policy to promote Health 2.0 (social media) , even the basic Health Information Technology policy is not in place. The government sector lacks computer literacy leading to adoption problems. Even though private players are adopting these new technologies they are skeptical as Supreme Court of India has not addressed the specific right of privacy. The focus of private players revolve around extending brand image, creating awareness and engaging consumers by helping them adopt healthy lifestyle.
With most of the patents records being paper based adaptation of IT technologies and social media will need a lot of ground work and firm commitment from all the stakeholders.

Leading brands and wellness products are creating awareness by creating challenges to help consumers stay fit and healthy. Some of the key examples of such challenges include Healthy Heart Competition by Max Hospital. The wellness game is focused on helping consumers understand their heart. Cardio vascular diseases are the major cause of death in India. Hence such initiatives are the need of an hour.

The challenge focuses of helping members learn whats good for their health.
Traditionally gaming has been used in villages and rural Sector to help them understand importance of sanitation, cleanliness and basics of healthcare . Social media is emulating our grass roots.

Social media can r evolutionize th e pr even tive car e ecosystem

Emotional Connect - Past and Future

Healthcare ecosystem has survived on emotional connect between doctors and patients. In rural India doctors have been considered next to God .
With growing consumerism and education levels, consumers are now taking charge of their health and dont blindly trust doctors. They ask proactive questions. Migration has resulted to emergence of social media based emotional connect. With urbanization on the rise, where dose a common consumer find Who is the good doctor in this locality? Online tools, listing and social media based recommendation works and help establish emotional connect and trust with the new doctors. Patients share their stories and experiences at particular facility and rate the services of doctors. In absence of industry ratings, social media based recommendation will be the only source for doctor selection for a new consumer. Hence medical professionals in urban areas are proactively working on creating their Social Media Image

Population Management
Population management is one of the key focus areas of Indian government. With geographical barriers health data usually does not reach I time till key decision makers.
Social media can help in predicting spread of specific diseases over the region. Patients and doctors can share instances of diseases and patterns can be identified using Google maps and spread of such communicable diseases can be arrested. Social media is of great use when information needs to be shared with huge audiences. H1N1 awareness campaign was the leading example how social media can be used to spread preventive health information and spread awareness..

Smart Apps and medical equipment for social healthcare

With the emerging use of smart phones, healthcare applications have gained momentum.
Healthcare applications are available across the spectrum ranging from scheduling application, disease management application, symptoms checker. Smart medical equipments with capability to integrate with the web, smart phones will help sharing of medical data with consumers and between hospitals.

Smart medical pill boxes, fit bit , nike shoe chip , sleeping bands are all examples of smart wellness devices.

Emerging Health Insurance Market and problems

While the liberalization of the healthcare sector will increase the penetration of insurance policies, the widespread use of health insurance in India could take many years. One reason is that insurance companies lack the data they need to assess health risks accurately. In addition, todays insurance products work on an indemnity basisthat is, they reimburse patients only after they have paid their healthcare bills. Since many people cannot afford such large payments, even if they are subsequently reimbursed, they will not choose to purchase medical insurance. Social media can help in increasing awareness on necessity of health insurance, changing the mindset of Indian consumers on their attitude towards health insurance. Social can also provide lifestyle analytics and behavioral data, although this is not of much use today the future definitely holds promise.

Marketing Platform
Social media has replaced traditional print and display media as the leading marketing platform.

Social media engages consumers. Its based on the concepts of pull marketing rather than a traditional push mode.
We rarely trust ads when its a concern of health, but we trust opinions and advice.

Did we ever visit a doctor or hospital because of advertisement?

Social media is being used to market health insurance and Wellness products but the emotional chord has not struck yet. Lack benchmarking and rating features like developed nations are yet not available to compare physicians.

Convergence of Health IT and Social Media

Most patient records are paper based and very difficult to convert to electronic format. Lack of standards, local HIT system that do not adhere to standards for information representation and exchange. This could be further complicated because of the use of multiple local languages by patients and health workers

India has the larger challenge to migrate from paper based system to HIT and integrate it with social media to address the demographical and geographical challenges.

Social media has achieved greater success in marketing Medical Tourism primarily because of extensive use of social media in developed nations and rising cost of healthcare is developed nations.

Social media provides ordinary patients and doctors powers to do extraordinary things

Neeraj Kakkar
Neeraj has over 10 years of experienc e in the field of HIT .Managing large healthcare products and projects, with expertise in the SOA based architecture.

Manish Nachnani
Manish has over 7 years of experience in the field of HIT with focus on innovative healthcare consumer products and leveraging health 2.0 and social media capabilities for disease and wellness m anagem ent.
neeraj_kakkar@gmail.com manishnachnani@gmail.com