3 bodies raising the bar in Healthcare Marketing

Healthcare Tourism, or the act where people from one country travel to another specifically to gain access to healthcare services, is a globally growing industry sector. Although a relatively recent entrant into the Asian region, the last couple of decades have witnessed the rapid rise of several Asian countries in this field and some of the most preferred destinations for quality healthcare are in Asia.

(For a related post on theTop 5 Destinations for Healthcare Tourism, go here.)

The triggers for Healthcare Tourism are plenty and well-defined. Among the chief reason is the affordability of care. In several developed economies, the cost of healthcare is prohibitive. The recent rise of on-par treatment options at a fraction of the price (often, even after including flight and accommodation charges) have prompted the spurt and steady growth. Another reason could be the inordinately long waiting times for countries which offer a version of nationalized healthcare. Yet another reason could be the availability of treatment options that are considered unethical or even illegal in the patients’ home countries.

Whatever the motivations may be, all Healthcare Tourists primarily seek one thing – quality healthcare at reasonable prices. This is the fundamental premise on which the entire industry has been built. While patients are surely seeking cheaper or more affordable alternatives, they are not necessarily willing to compromise on quality. And when it comes to multiple countries with multiple quality standards and multiple regulations, the crying need is for one consistent system that can provide confidence and credibility.

This is where the following three accreditation bodies become highly relevant. Over time, they have come to offer the credibility and reliability of global standards of excellence. Today, industry watchers worldwide often refer to them as the must-have accreditation even before a patient begins planning a trip.

JointCommission International

This is the international arm of the Joint Commission Accreditation for Hospital Organisations (JCAHO). JCI is considered to be the ‘gold standard’ when it comes to certifying health care capabilities and accreditation gives patients the confidence that they are getting access to the best service according to International standards. Globally, the best hospitals for Medical Tourism strive to get and retain their JCI accreditation.

NationalAccreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers

National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH) is a constituent board of Quality Council of India, set up to establish and operate accreditation program for healthcare organizations. NABH is an Institutional Member as well as a Board member of the International Society for Quality in Health Care (lSQua). NABH is also on the board of Asian Society for Quality in Healthcare (ASQua).

TheMedical Travel Quality Alliance

Medical Travel Quality Alliance (MTQUA) is an independent international organization that develops and promotes the highest standards of excellence in delivering treatment and care to medical travelers and health tourists. MTQUA informs and connects consumers who are seeking health and wellness services to health care and support service providers. It is considered to be a "go-to resource" for people seeking information on medical tourism globally.

Hospitals and Healthcare service providers who hope to tap in to the growing Healthcare Tourism market would do well to get themselves accredited by these bodies.

3 inspiring William Osler quotes for healthcare digital marketers

Sir William Osler (1849 – 1919) was a Canadian physician and one of the four founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of physicians, and he was the first to bring medical students out of the lecture hall for bedside clinical training. He has frequently been described as the "Father of Modern Medicine".

A prolific writer (and incidentally, an inveterate prankster!), a number of Osler's quotes make sense even today when viewed from the perspective healthcare digital marketers. Here's a sampling of a few.

"It’s more important to know what type of patient has the disease than what type of disease a patient has."

In other words, take the time and effort to know your target audience well. Different kinds of people have radically different approaches to their own healthcare. It is only when you understand what type of patient you are dealing with that you can provide them with the kind of regimen advice that they are likely to follow. Even patients with the same disease may fall into very different digital marketing segments.

"Listen to your patient, he is telling you the diagnosis."

What people say they do and what they actually do are very different things. You can learn more about the digital habits of your target audience by observing their usage and behavior patterns than any number of thoughtfully-designed questionnaires could ever tell you. Patients are people too and healthcare may very well be the 2nd most searched term on the Internet. When you understand how your audience behaves, you can easily reach out to them with the right message, on the right channel at the right time.

"He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all."

Marketing is the management process through which goods and services move from concept to the customer. To excel at Healthcare Digital Marketing, you don't need to be an expert in healthcare. Or even marketing. However, you need to intuitively understand how user behavior is continually changing. How do they use the web? What do they do on their mobiles? How are they tracking their health with wearables? How are they managing their own care with medical devices? In short - what are they doing, where and how frequently? That will point you in the right direction and add value to your efforts.

The Google Health Card

Way back in 2012, Google added something called the Knowledge Graph to their search database to enhance search engine results. For the user, this meant access to structured and detailed information about the topic along with several additional links. It basically ‘compiled’ search results and helped users who wanted a snapshot of sorts without having to laboriously navigate through the search results and gather the information themselves. This soon became an integral part of typical search results. So much so that the short summary provided at the beginning of the Knowledge Graph is often used as the spoken answer in Google Now searches.

Google they say knows everything. Small wonder then that people turn to Google for all their queries. As of 2015, Google alone had over 4.7 billion daily searches. Not just that, over 72% of users said that they typically start with Google when it comes to seeking health information online – whether it is for themselves or for others. In fact, search is where over 75% of all health information seekers come from when compared to other channels available online. So it wasn’t really a surprise when Google decided to launch Health Cards in India. What was a surprise however was that India was the third country to witness this launch after the US and Brazil. 

So what exactly are these Health Cards anyway? 

Simply put, when you search for one of more than 400 health conditions common to India (including the likes of malaria and dengue fever) you are presented with the regular search engine results page (SERP) accompanied by a panel to the right. This panel (which Google calls a card) carries an illustration, major symptoms, need for lab tests for diagnosis, most commonly affected age groups and also indicates whether a condition is contagious along with other such information.

Health Card for Type 2 Diabetes on Google

The cards are currently available in both English and Hindi. Google has said that they are working on more languages as well as expanding the number of conditions covered. AIIMS, Apollo Hospitals, Columbia Asia Hospitals and ASHAs (Community health workers in India) were among those who worked closely with Google to make this service a reality.

5 challenges the Healthcare sector in India faces

When viewed through the PESTLE lens of business analysis, there are several problems plaguing the healthcare sector in India. Most of the challenges have multiple dimensions – Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental. Here is an attempt to identify the top five challenges.

1. Under-served Rural Market

Nowhere is the rich-poor and urban-rural divide as strongly evident as it is in the healthcare sector. While over 70% of Indians live in rural areas, a staggering 80% of all specialists are to be found in urban areas! So not only can the rural masses not afford critical healthcare, even if they happen to be able to, there just aren't enough doctors available to help them!

Due to the lack of suitably trained and qualified healthcare professionals, the rural masses typically turn to alternative treatment methods, quacks, charlatans or worse to help plug the gap. In most cases, these unqualified individuals end up doing more harm than good with their uninformed diagnoses coupled with dangerous remedies.

2. Lack of basic healthcare infrastructure

While India may be shining in terms of a stable economy, lower inflation rates and an increasing GDP, Healthcare as a sector gets less than 1% of the total GDP allocation. This is considerably less than what most of our neighboring countries allocate - let alone developed economies.

Even more startlingly, only about 70% of the allocated budget is actually utilized! Adding insult to an already miserable injury! What this means in real terms is that even the basic infrastructure available in rural areas are under-financed, understaffed and have pathetic standards of hygiene. A situation that is unlikely to change for the better anytime soon.

3. Lack of effective payment mechanisms

Less than 5% of Indians are estimated to be under the protection of a health-insurance plan. Logically, this would largely be applicable to urban centers. Which means the rural population is entirely paying out of pocket! A sure means to absolute financial ruin, even if a decent doctor or specialist can be accessed in time.

This is precisely why the bulk of money spent on healthcare goes to private entities. After all, why would one want to deal with lack of doctors, corrupt staff, doctored medical supplies and non-existent infrastructure if they had to pay out of pocket for it? It is bad enough a deal when offered free of charge!

4. Brain drain compounding a severe shortage of doctors

This is partly related to a supply demand mismatch. Firstly, we have a shortage of health care professionals (currently at .7 per 1,000 as against a WHO recommended minimum of 3.5 per 1,000). 

Secondly, the number of specialists getting trained each year is limited to 48,000 MBBS seats and 20,000 PG seats. Nowhere near sufficient to close the shortage gap. Even among these, the bulk prefer to practice in urban areas leaving rural healthcare centers critically understaffed.

The third and probably most critical factor is brain drain. This leads to an exodus of doctors to other countries. It doesn't help that other, more developed economies are openly discussing how they want to target and poach Indian Healthcareprofessionals!

5. Underdeveloped medical devices sector

Although the medical devices category in India is worth well over USD 3 billion, the sector suffers from severe limitations and insurmountable challenges. The foremost among these is the low spend on healthcare as a percentage of GDP. This results in a lack of tax incentives to promote indigenous manufacturing which in turn promotes a high import dependency which (frankly and quixotically) makes devices made in India higher priced when compared to low-cost, imported ones! 

Ironically, the Companies manufacturing these devices elsewhere are staffed with Indian born and educated talent which couldn’t find suitable opportunities in-country! The lack of a sufficiently-evolved payments and reimbursements system only compounds the problem.

Everything is not gloom and doom though! There have been some recent policies implemented by the Government of India as well as some radical innovations emerging from the minds of the entrepreneurial youth of the nation which hold out some hope for the sector. More on those in another post.

Disclaimer: While every attempt has been made to verify numerical data, the numbers presented herein are a collation from various publicly-available sources online. Readers are advised to conduct their own research for authenticity purposes.

India Healthcare Sector | Some heartening statistics

• Overall, the sector is growing at a CAGR of 17% during 2008-20
• Healthcare revenues (currently at USD 100 billion) to reach USD 280 billion by 2020
• The Healthcare Information Technology (IT) (currently valued at US$ 1 billion) is expected to grow 1.5 times by 2020
• Over 80 per cent of the antiretroviral drugs used globally to combat AIDS are supplied by Indian pharmaceutical firms
• Over 50 technologies in FY 16 for the treatment of Cancer, TB and other diseases
• The Indian medical tourism industry is pegged at US$ 3 billion (with tourist arrivals estimated at 230,000). This is set to double over the next four years. 

Source: www.ibef.org

Central Bureau of… What?

Most of us have undoubtedly heard of the Central Bureau of Investigation. But has anyone ever heard of the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence? I for one wasn’t certain I could believe my eyes when I was browsing the net looking for some India-related statistics on healthcare and came across the website.

CBHI Website

Established as far back as 1961, the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence (CBHI) is the National nodal Institute in the  Directorate General of Health Services,  Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of India. Like most ministerial outfits, the CBHI is headquartered at Nirman Bhavan in New Delhi.

CBHI is headed by a Director and has four distinct divisions:

• ·         Policy & Infrastructure
• ·         Training, Collaboration & Research
• ·         Information & Evaluation and
• ·         Administration

The CBHI is ably supported by 6 Health Information Field Survey Units located in different Regional Offices of Health and Family Welfare of the GOI at Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur, Lucknow & Patna

In-service training courses for the CBHI are conducted by the following hospitals:

• ·         Regional Health Statistics Training Centre at Mohali, Punjab
• ·         Medical Record Department & Training Centre of Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi
• ·         and JIPMER, Puduchery

The stated objectives of the CBHI include:

• ·         To maintain and disseminate the: National Health Profile, Health Sector Policy Reform Options Database, Inventory and GIS Mapping of Government Health Facilities in India, etc.
• ·         Review the Progress of Health Sector Millennium Development Goal in India.
• ·         Annual Road Safety Profile of India
• ·         Facilitate Capacity Building & Human Resource Development, and
• ·         Need Based Operational Research for Efficient Health Information System as well as use of Family of International Classification in India & South East Asia Region.

Of special interest was the National Health Profile – 2015, which is available on the site in the form of an E-Book. If you forgive the slow loading and terrible Flash, you see it filled with a whole host of interesting statistics. 

You can bet that I will be visiting this site regularly from now on!

BioDigital Human | Winner - 2015 Webby Awards – Health Category

For the past 20 years, The Webby Awards have been recognizing and awarding excellence in website and digital executions. Last year's winner under the Web - Health Category was the BioDigital Human by BioDigital, Inc. Here's a brief explanation, in their own words about the project.

BioDigital Human Website

Describe your nominated project—give us your elevator pitch.
The BioDigital Human represents the most sophisticated, interactive, 3D virtual human body platform available. At the cross-section of health and innovation lies a medically accurate virtual body map where users can explore detailed anatomy, fitness, and health conditions, remove layers to visualize animated diseases’ progress, and virtually take a tour of the human body. With ever-growing demands in healthcare for health and wellness information, the BioDigital Human platform powerfully transforms how we understand and communicate health through a unique fusion of art, science, and cutting-edge technology.

What inspired you most to follow your dreams/vision while working on this project?
Despite dramatic technical advances in healthcare, we face alarmingly low levels of health literacy. The BioDigital Human provides a powerful solution to this unmet need in healthcare, by offering an interactive, virtual tour of the human body. When integrated with the vast amount of online medical data and health records, the platform has the potential to deliver increasingly personalized views of patient health.

If you had one piece of advice for aspiring creators looking to define their own rules, what would it be?
BioDigital’s guiding management principle is people, product, and purpose – we’re focused on building up every leg of that three-legged stool in order to accomplish our original mission. We hire the best and brightest people to build the most innovative 3D health product on the market and inspire them with the purpose of transforming the way health information is communicated. Everything we build is purpose driven, from the patient education modules to the interactive testing environments for teaching surgical procedures, and that inspires our team to bring their best to the job every day.

The changing face of how we engage with our health

There was a time when patients treated doctors with reverence (closer to adulation actually!) You dared not lie to them. You only ever questioned them at your own peril. They were learned people who spoke in a jargon-riddled language only their peers could understand. These were professionals, who literally had your life and the lives and well being of your loved ones in their hands.

Then the Internet happened. And with that came websites like WebMD and Health.com Things have never been the same ever since. From a time when patients walked in with little or no information about their condition, they now routinely go in armed to the teeth with reams of information on conditions (real and imagined!) that they have personally researched online. Wearable tech-tools like FitBit and Jawbone (along with a wide variety of other branded and unbranded ones) today enable us to monitor our daily exercise and provide us with sharable reports at the press of a button.

Nearly every household has and regularly uses state-of-the-art portable Blood Pressure, Blood Sugar, Digital Weighing Scales and other pro-sumer medical devices. We increasingly book our appointments, tests and treatments online through various Internet-enabled channels or through apps. Soon visits to the neighborhood diagnostic centers are likely to be a thing of the past.

Medical blogs, patient blogs and a small (yet growing breed) of healthcare professional blogs now routinely offer advice and tips on how to tackle everything from acne to recovering from chemotherapy. Home remedies have always been a popular go-to source of information. Today, they have only taken on an e-avatar; making them accessible to a much wider audience.

Even buying prescription drugs no longer warrants a visit to the dispensary or neighborhood pharmacy. 1mg and Netmeds have made ordering, buying and delivery of prescription medication hassle-free, not to mention more economical due to the rebates, discounts and loyalty points offered. The dynamics of how we engage with our health are rapidly changing.

Can healthcare digital marketing afford to be left behind?