mHealth in India: The Untapped Potential

kganapathy

President Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation

One wonders whether we should invoke serendipity or to use an Indian term “karma” to explain the contents of the world’s first telephone call, made by Alexander Graham Bell on March 10^th 1876:  “ Watson, come here, I want you” a request for medical aid after spilling acid on himself from a Leclanche cell – it was the world’s first demonstration of mHealth!

Little could Bell have known that on Dec 5^th 2011, 3,500 people from 50 different countries will spend 3 full days discussing just how a phone could indeed be the most disruptive innovation of the 21^st century; radically transforming the delivery of health care to the 7 billion on this planet. Then again, the 25 of us who were “locked up” for 4 days at Bellagio for a discussion on mHealth just 40 months ago could never have prophesied that the mHealth Alliance  and the Summit vaguely proposed, would actually happen so soon and grow not incrementally but exponentially.

As a neurosurgeon (turned mHealth evangelist) belonging to the BC era (Before Computers and Before Christ), it has been my fortune to witness the conception and gestation of mHealth. However, in mHealth abortions seem to be the rule rather than a full term normal delivery. We have more pilots in mHealth than there are in the US Air Force or Indian Air Force. “Pilotitis” seems to be a common affliction. How do we ensure that we do not stop with just presenting papers at national and international conferences?

The fact that there is a crying need for improving health care delivery in every country, whether it be in Northern America or sub Saharan Africa is universally accepted. The fact that the 5 billion mobile phones can bridge the urban rural health divide is slowly being realized.

Let us take India as an example: 1.250 billion, or one sixth of the world, lives here. We have 13 million broadband connections, 100 million internet subscribers, 88 million Personal Computers but  875 million mobile phones with increasing number of smart phones. According to a study carried out by the Indian Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry value-added services (VAS) will constitute 20% of revenues of mobile network operators (MNOs) by 2013. Currently there is a 25% annual incremental increase of VAS.45 million urban Indians use mBanking  and  mEntertainment and mCommerce is growing by 47% ( $10 billion already this year). According to Mckinsey, with 450 mobile internet users, India could become “ the first truly mobile digital society” by 2015. In this scenario,a killer mHealth application (no pun intended) is conspicuous – by the fact that it is absent! The  2011 National  Telecom  Policy  talks about increasing  rural teledensity from 35 to 100 by 2020, about broadband on demand and 600 million connections by  2020, about one e-literate person per household, and even efforts toward  ‘Right to Broadband’.A major policy objective is to reposition the mobile phone from a mere communication device to an instrument of empowerment and to emerge as a global leader in mVAS services. With this governmental support, it appears logical that there is a great untapped potential to make  mHealth a self sustaining and revenue generating integral part of the health care delivery system if the WiiiFM (Whatisin itForMe) concern of every stakeholdercan be addressed.

Prof Ganapathy is the Director of Apollo Tele Health Services and will present his experiences and insights at the upcoming mHealth Summit super session Mobile Health in the Clinical Enterprise. Dr. Ganapathy serves as President of the Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation, President of the Telemedicine Society of India, President of the Indian Society for Stereotactic & Functional Neurosurgery, and was previously President of the Neurological Society of India.