Big data driven policy interventions in the Indian healthcare sector

Abstract

Healthcare in India is mired with issues. At the forefront, what comes to mind is the lack of government interventions in terms of public expenditure and infrastructure. However, it is also absolutely true that with the coming-of-age “Digital Revolution” that India has embarked upon, it is but imperative that the future be filled with technological interventions that both act as a lever and as a backbone for existing policy interventions of the Government of India. It is with this endeavour that this paper takes the approach of understanding various nuances and subtleties of the healthcare sector. Being an extremely complex sector, with a state-focused administration of services, the umbrella goal of the ‘National Health Policy’ and subsequent announcement of an ‘Ayushman Bharat’, has resulted in a shift in the approach towards dealing with healthcare. While primarily interventions have taken the route of curative healthcare, with the push of both the NHP and the Ayushman Bharat programme, there is a shift towards both preventive and proactive healthcare. This is particularly visible in the vision statement of the NHP which focuses on ‘well-being’. To work towards both these dimensions of healthcare, technology becomes crucial since tools for predictive analysis and remote monitoring need to be factored in. Keeping this in mind, this paper proposes ‘Big Data’ as a policy intervention in the Indian healthcare space. Today, especially with social media and fragmented interventions seen in healthcare, there is a huge volume of variety data which is being generated with fast velocities. These characteristics of data itself make it a frontrunner for big data to be applied. What this paper proposes is a simple model and structure that could be implemented in the future with a holistic focus on data collection across districts, states and India as a whole, which results in formation of registries, which act as inputs to various stakeholders who form a part of the healthcare sector. By using predictive tools, it further brings out the various benefits and challenges of this intervention. Finally, with a focus on data privacy, it envisages the patient being the controller of such data and therefore works in conjunction with the proposed ‘Data Protection Bill, 2018’ and MeITY consent framework.