Health 4.0: Learning, Innovation, and Collaboration of Small and Medium Private Hospitals in India

Introduction

The 4th Industrial Revolution or “Industry 4.0” integrate smart technologies and cyber-physical systems in the manufacturing process. In healthcare, this revolution has brought in various technologies that aim to improve the quality and efficiency of patient care (Dinh, 2017). The revolution is integrating data directly into electronic medical records or using Artificial Intelligence to increase diagnosis accuracy, both globally and in India. Over the next few years, this revolution is likely to change the healthcare delivery system. This revolution is called Health 4.0.

The healthcare system in India comprises five segments such as hospitals, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and supplies, medical insurance and diagnostics (India Brand Equity Foundation, 2017). From these five segments hospital is the largest segment. Hospitals contribute 71% of the industry revenue, pharmaceuticals contribute 13%, medical equipment and supplies contribute 9%, medical insurance contributes 4%, and diagnostics contributes 3%. As the hospital segment constitutes more than 70% of the Indian healthcare market and is among the fastest-growing segments in the healthcare spectrum, therefore, this paper focuses on the hospital sector of India.

The healthcare system in India has been transformed by three forces such as an increase in healthcare demand, technological acceptance, and a rise in patient awareness. First, the Indian health care system lacks sufficient infrastructure to meet the health care demands of the country. As per India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) the compound annual growth rate of hospitalized cases from 2008 till 2018 for cardiac diseases (18%), oncology (16%) and diabetes (19%). These factors, along with a rising population, are all leading to rising demand for specialized health care in India. However, an increasing need for specialized care is expected to increase and challenges related to the infrastructure of health care are expected to intensify soon. Due to the lack of sufficient health care infrastructure, there is an imbalance of supply-demand of the health care facilities and a decline in the performance of the hospitals. Second, as per the report of the Ministry and IT in 2018, India holds the second spot globally (after China) on various dimensions of digital adoption, which shows that it is one of the fastest adopters of technology. This brings into play that the adoption of technology is affecting the health care system of India. Third, people are becoming increasingly curious and are spending more time on search engines and social media apps to understand health-related topics. There is a visible shift from reactive to proactive care with rising health consciousness. Therefore, to overcome this problem healthcare practitioners are advised to focus more on collaboration, coherence, and convergence to make the healthcare system more predictive and personalized.