A survey on connected healthcare beyond COVID in India: clinical perspectives

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen the advent of novel medical devices and practices. Demand for quality healthcare services rose exponentially which eventually led to accessibility becoming a major issue of concern. In addition to this, in-person consultations and various other conventional treatment methods were proven to be problematic. Limitations of traditional health care systems such as in-person consultations were highlighted, and conventional treatment methods have proven to be problematic. As an alternative approach, telehealth services are now gaining recognition due to their high efficiency, ease of use, and state-of-the-art technology. In this article, trends of telemedicine and its evolving popularity across the medical community due to the pandemic and beyond are studied and highlighted. An online survey form was circulated to 42 medical practitioners and interns to analyse the growing interest in telemedicine. The questionnaire covered the physicians' perspectives, preferences, experiences, and other important aspects of home-based teleconsultation. Based on the responses collected from doctors and medical interns, 14.2% disapproved, whereas 38.1% favoured and 47.6% showed a neutral response to the teleconsultation. More than 50% of the respondents claim the process to be time-consuming and 42% of them perceived it to be the other way round. 4.8% of the doctors preferred it to be only through computers whereas 45.2% per cent preferred consultation through smartphones and 50% of them preferred it be both ways. More than half (59.5%) of the doctors preferred the pandemic scenario and the remaining for its continued usage post-pandemic. Although India has the world's second-largest online market, a major population in India is digitally illiterate according to the Digital Foundation of India. Thus, it is important to devise telehealth technology that is simplest to use to reach also the economically backward patient communities.