Quality healthcare is a continuous need in our life. Healthcare, as we understand, is a service provided by a medical practitioner based on consumer needs. It is a similar service to our phone, electricity, and water which are maintained to our satisfaction.
- Why is healthcare so complex and costly?
- Why do we fear so much going to a medical practitioner?
- Why do people take the advice of medical practitioners with a level of mistrust?
- Medical treatment for an ailment
- General Physician
- Surgeries
- Labs
- Pharmacy
- Diagnostics
- Preventive Maintenance
- Services Provided at clinics
- General monitoring of vitals
- Labs
- Cleanings and corrections
- Services Provided at clinics
- Actions one is required to do himself
- Diet Management
- Lifestyle Management
- Medicines Management
- Vitals Monitoring
It looks simple, so why is healthcare so complicated, costly, and full of mistrust. To find an answer I decided to look at how some of my other services reach me and get some clues.
Let's look at electricity: You get electricity service based on a per-unit consumption. The power you consume comes to you by following a full chain of generation, distribution, and metering. Various touchpoints have their own associated costs. You get a single bill with details on the price you are paying for multiple touch-points of generation, distribution, and metering. Everything has proper codes and explanations at the rate you agreed to pay. We see a few important features here, a well-defined service with a delivery model and associated cost with a clear understanding of what you get and what you are expected to pay for it. Price reduced by improving the delivery mechanism with lower overheads, identification of cheaper sources of generation and better metering mechanism with less wastage, and to top it off, the constant awareness of money and environmental benefits to consumers for using low energy managed devices.
- More upfront consumer visibility into the service type and cost
- Every service process has a code and associated cost
- The more efficient delivery mechanism reducing wastage
- Make consumer the in charge of cost management
- Cost-benefit visibility of various preventive maintenance actions
- Tools and incentives for managing the preventive maintenance
- Reduce the cost of preventive maintenance services
With the innovation in smartphones, AI, internet connectivity at everybody’s tip, and efficiency brought by cashless transactions, remote monitoring, and remote delivery of service, modern thin and very simple but smart platforms where healthcare service providers can provide efficient services with no overhead.
"The future of healthcare is small, distributed and digital. Smaller medical facilities can perform services through the latest technology to lower cost of treatment to patients. Patients can follow up virtually using smartphones with medical care providers. AI can handle patient monitoring and preventive suggestions."
