Digital Doctor : A Paradigmatic Shift in the Health Sector in the Post Covid Period

Online doctor consultation in India has gained popularity from the year 2020, which is precisely the year when the pandemic had set in. Left with no other viable solution during the emergency, India had embraced digitally enabled health consultation as a necessity. 

Currently, in the post pandemic period, online health consultation is gradually becoming a norm in India. 

Is online medical consultation increasing in India? 

Online medical consultation had already begun in India, in the large cities in the pre pandemic period. However, an unprecedented growth has been witnessed since March 2020. Two major reasons can be attributed to it. 

Pandemic

500% growth in online medical consultation has been experienced in the pandemic, for treating both covid and non covid health issues, as reported by Indian Express. 80% of the total number of patients were first timers, from big cities as well as from the sub urban areas. 

How is online doctor consultation a futuristic vision in the health sector of India?

From the perspective of utility and practicality, online medical consultations are the future for the various ways it serves the medical needs of the modern times. Much of it lies in awareness and finding ways to mitigate health issues with alternative steps. 

• Apart from covid 19 there are other communicable diseases as well which demands strict physical distancing, to prevent others from getting infected. In such cases, online medical consultation is supposed to be indispensable.

• Awareness about mental health has brought to light that often the patients feel severely unmotivated to pull themselves up to report to the clinic. Especially in cases of severe anxiety and depression, online medical consultation can act as a comforting ray of hope. 

• Severely ill patients who are unable to visit the clinic for a check up, or even cannot have the doctor visit them at their residence can now easily avail of online consultations.

• Online health consultations are multifaceted, offering services across several branches of medicine like allopathy, homeopathy and even ayurved, for treating a plethora of ailments. 

Basically, with online doctor consultations the patients need not have to visit the clinic mandatorily, like it is traditionally practiced. Unless of course it is a dire emergency, online consultations suffice. 

Wrapping up 

Online doctor consultation in India is indeed going to develop and become more popular in future. It certainly is not going to be an absolute replacement for physical examination totally. Nevertheless, it is the reflection of the changing times in the field of medical health.