The healthcare sector in India needs a reform in its customer acquisition and care. With data analytics firms budding across the globe, India needs to eradicate the old healthcare management system and embrace new and efficient tools.
According to reports, India has a deficiency of trained medical workforce and falls short under the World Health Organisation guidelines. India needs a proper healthcare system which can cater to everyone’s needs. Healthcare has seen many new applications of data analytics and is open to many contemporary solutions to all healthcare-related issues. Health analytics is an umbrella term which includes offering insights about patient records, cost, diagnosis, pharmaceutics and medical research data, among others. These insights are often given in real time and help organisations take appropriate actions in healthcare, research and market.
Scope Of Analytics In Healthcare
In the US, healthcare analytics is estimated to see an increase of $18.5 billion by the year 2020 (Mckinsey & Company). IBM launched Watson health, a cloud-based application, which gives a platform to healthcare providers and patients to share expertise on health and research. The platform has helped over 1,84,000 patients and 80,000 professionals with intellectual solutions. According to reports, in the Indian pharmaceuticals sector, branded medicines make up for 70-80% of the retail market. The market is ever growing, medical infrastructure and health insurance have become provident in the healthcare sector. Under the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), healthcare analysis has become an integral part of providing efficient healthcare advice to both hospital administration and patients. Many healthcare firms are introducing data analytics in their organisations.
For example, MyCooey, a mobile-based application helps connect healthcare providers to patients, family, and office. This helps “Clinicians” check patient records and anomalies in health status and timely diagnose it and share vital information with peers and family.
Healthcare Analyst: A New Career Opportunity For Medical Students
Premium institutes like the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and Krupandhi School of Management (KSM) have introduced Post Graduation programmes in the field of healthcare Analytics. This course helps students from either medical or pharma background to learn about latest software in data analysis, business intelligence and the role of artificial intelligence in healthcare. The courses are open not only for medical graduates but also for other science graduates. The PG-DM course provided by KSM is structured for students with a background in medicine to understand and modify models of healthcare data analytics in India.
The minimum criterion for this course is a bachelor’s degree in science or medicine. Students who complete this course often get placed in hospitals, consulting firms, analytics firms and with other healthcare providers.
In India, several new opportunities are up and coming in the field of healthcare analytics. For example, the US-based company InfoFaces has ventured in Chennai to provide cost-effective health plans, integrated medical solutions and forecast market dynamics in healthcare to clients.
Intelligence Is Artificial, The Pay Isn’t
The field is a current favourite amongst data analysts. Companies like Gionik Human Capital Solutions, pay up to ₹12 lakh per annum salary to data scientists in healthcare analytics stream. One can also bag a job as a healthcare analyst in the UK-based enterprise, Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), which pays up to ₹6 lacs per annum.
With the medical and pharmaceutical field getting over-flooded every year, it’s saddening to see that only a few aspirants are able to achieve their dreams. An alternative and attractive career has been introduced in the education sector. Data analysts and scientists not only get well paid but also get to work with the biggest technology and health firms.
Outlook
Data by India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) suggests a boom in hospital industry by 16-17%, estimated to reach the $372 billion by 2022 by introducing easy access to healthcare and services to everyone at affordable rates. Indian start-ups like Metaome aim to create new database technologies in the healthcare sector. DistilBio, one of the company’s products, helps in making personalised medicine, giving clinical support and life sciences research by integrating data from various life science sources and compiling and shaping graphics data. Its founders Kalpana Krishnaswami and Ramkumar Nandakumar left their science-research management jobs to co-found a company to help people in India gain easy and efficient access to healthcare.
The transition from medicine to data analytics is a tough choice based on subjects like mathematics, financial management, data mining, software languages etc. But is an exciting and adventurous career opportunity for those who want to venture into a different aspect of healthcare like dealing with rapid urbanisation and its effects on economy and health, drug discovery, health insurance, or even medical tourism.
