Question

With the majority of health-care costs spent for the treatment of chronic diseases (High BP, Dibetes & HIV) and the reason for most emergency room visits being non-emergencies, the time is ripe for telemedicine in South Africa. More so with Covid-19 pandemic, patients are reluctunt to visit a hospital for non-emergencies. Patients are using their phones, tablets, and keyboards instead of making an office visit or trip to the emergency room. Technology makes it possible for doctors to consult with patients through Skype or FaceTime on smartphones, access medical tests via electronic medical records, and send a prescription to a patient’s local pharmacy—all from miles away. The telemedicine industry is still in its infancy, earning only $868 million in annual revenue in 2017, but it is predicted to increase to an almost $56 billion industry by 2023. It is expected to exhibit a CAGR of 17% from 2018 to 2023 (forecast period). Technology isn’t the only reason for this industry’s growth such as adoption of electronic health records (EHR) by hospitals is one of the primary drivers of the market. The legislation suport by Governements that are encouraging electronic medical records is also adding fuel to this fire. In order to ensure health care services are still being provided during the national period of shut down and during the Covid- 19 pandemic and to achieve the objectives of “The Allied Health Professions Act” (63) was amended on 25 March 2020 by President Cyril Ramaphosa that allows to practice telehealth and/or telemedicne for medical professionals.

Based on the scenario given above, critically discuss pros and cons of offering medical services with help of telemedicine. Critically discuss the marketing decisions that may be used in the selected product life cycle of telemedicine? Critically evaluate the role of mobile technology and artificial intelligence (AI) in the evolution of this industry and predict future trajectory? Justify your response.

Answer 1

Telemedicine as an alternative to conventional outpatient appointments with doctors has been active in nascent or developed form for more than two decades. The preferences of stakeholders both doctors and patients in past have meant that telemedicine always remained the secondary rather than the go to option as far as medical consultation was concerned. The current scenario of covid-19 has meant that most hospitals and medical facilities along with medical professionals are engaged in mitigation of the pandemic and control of spread to the extent possible. This has meant more hands on and face to face time of medical professionals being spent among people infected which such viral and infectious diseases. As a result face to face consultation in outpatient departments for chronic illness has taken a backseat in terms of priority. A renewed growth in telemedicine can thus be seen till such time the pandemic subsides. If in this window of opportunity telemedicine can establish itself as a credible, consistent and convenient alternative to face to face consultation that was the norm in the pre pandemic time then telemedicine can become the go-to method for patients especially considering the conveniences that it can offer.

Some of the key advantages of the telemedicine can be understood in view of the above. The conventional standard practice of consultation for chronic illness employs a discussion with doctor followed by a set of tests that the doctor may recommend followed by review of test reports and prescription to patients. With few exceptions where doctor must physically examine the patient before recommending pathological tests the very step of taking appointment with doctors, traveling to their clinic and waiting for your consultation with doctor gets minimized. Thus the advantage of saving on time and bringing convenience to both patients and doctors is clearly visible. The onset of current pandemic has brought about a cultural shift in the thinking of people and review of hygiene is changed forever. Adequate caution towards movement in public space, sanitization pre and post such movement and use of protective equipment especially in hospital environment shall continue to be a norm for the foreseeable future. This obviously does not come without inherent costs and need for or organization hosting and responsible for public spaces to continuously monitor and spend on sanitization initiatives also added to costs. Telemedicine as an alternative provides a great relief in costs especially towards use of personal protective equipment by people visiting hospitals. This in turn has cascading impact on environment by minimizing pollution as a result of frequent use of disposable PPE. Another advantage of telemedicine is the increase in outreach of medical professionals which can through peer recommendations or directly now help patients from a much greater region then there domestic clientele. Additionally patients also get access to the best doctors without having to move around too much with consequent impact on time and cost savings as well as availing the best possible expertise for resolution of their problems.

Having said that telemedicine is not without its disadvantages. At the outset one immediate short term disadvantage is that inefficient and unscrupulous stakeholders on either side will try to use this platform to take advantage of unsuspecting people who are using this platform for giving or receiving medical help. This can however be prevented by improving the efficiency and classification system so that people are able to review and identify such elements so that others are not cheated by them. Secondly in the line of treatment where physical examination by doctor is unavailable telemedicine does not offer much help. There is also a danger of of people utilizing vulnerabilities of the system to cause damage by stealing data and harassing people. This can also be understood in terms of privacy concerns that are inherent in any multi-stakeholder online platform so telemedicine is also not spared of this risk.

The marketing around telemedicine will have to be done in such a way that it delivers upon the advantages while ensuring convenience but also gives the people the confidence that the disadvantages shall not be a perennial feature of telemedicine and the system is sufficiently competent to deal and nullify them as and when they appear also so well before they stand to hurt the interest of people. Telemedicine will offer a marketing platform to both experts as well as pharmaceutical companies who can work in partnership with medical experts as is the cases conventionally and also undertake marketing campaigns independently. Marketing for off the shelf drugs will the easiest and a near replica of The E-Commerce marketing that is witnessed in consumer goods on online platforms. Volumes, Quality and Fresh Stock along with results shall underscore marketing campaign for off the shelf medicines. Marketing campaign for prescription items will have to be e designed in a more nuanced manner where opinion of experts and results from trials Shelby the greater focus of marketing instead of direct advertising. This prescription based drug marketing shall essentially be carried out through expert referral which will necessitate Pharmaceutical Companies approaching medical professionals online as well as conventionally to discuss the advantages of their products. Comparative assessment with computing drugs shall also be an important part of marketing decisions. As far as marketing with regards to medical professionals is concerned, some form of informal and referral based marketing is already in place conventionally and the same shall find a mirror reflection in the telemedicine space where renowned experts will get visibility through platforms and also provide visibility to fellow professionals through peer recommendations.

Mobile technology and advancements as artificial intelligence shall play a huge part in the future of tele-medicine. Moving away from a simple method of a database of doctors available through medical equivalent of yellow pages, mobile phone technology shall provide apps that will host medical professionals based on expertise, skill, experience, area of service, patient experience, peer review and other criteria that may become relevant from time to time. Thus mobile technology will further tele-medicine two exponential growth. Use of artificial intelligence in tele-medicine has limitless possibilities. Some key advantages visible at present are auto recommendations to patients based on based chronic illness, preference of travel if required, preference for professionals and utilization of online reviews for drugs as well as professionals to help decision making. Additional AI can enable faster integration of all stakeholders on the platform as well as change is like real time appointment it and consultation and also so use of historical data to augment consultation and line of treatment. While these are some visible advantages as AI evolve, there is more to come beyond the horizon.

If you found the above content useful, please give an up-vote. Thank You.