The mobile health apps topic is catching a lot of attention. It's another buzzword today.

The IT advancements in the healthcare sector, especially mobile health applications and services, are transforming the way healthcare is being delivered with applications. These may be as wide-ranging as clinical decision support, video conferencing, online consultations, remote patient monitoring, maintaining patients' health care records, analyzing possible future diseases and treatment & prescriptions, among others.

Such a transformation is the need of the hour in view of the fact that healthcare in India needs more and more professionals to cater to the increasing illnesses and patients. Also, what needs to be factored in is that now we have more informed masses who are inquisitive about their health issues. The idea is to provide quality care in time and at an economical cost to the patient.

Responding to the need of the hour, "The Digital India Healthcare Summit-2015," the first HIMSS summit was held recently in Gurgaon. The summit deliberated on upcoming IT trends in the healthcare sector and the rising use of actionable mobile health apps in India. The mobile phone ownership exceeds 278 million, a critical mass that signifies an immense opportunity for the healthcare community to leverage mobile tools to provide quality care.

Empowered with IT healthcare products and services, doctors will have detailed information about patients' health and necessary as well as appropriate treatment required. The information will stream in from more sources than ever before. Mobile services will enable effective and on-time healthcare delivery. And, the launch of the Digital India programme supported by the rapid spread in internet penetration is going to be a big booster to actionable mobile health applications in the coming days.

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Shireesh Sahai[/caption]

One of the panel discussions on big data and predictive analytics at the event discussed how the advent of new technologies is changing the dynamics of the healthcare industry. "Better mobile connectivity and infrastructure are not only driving the mobile healthcare market to a considerable extent, but they are also providing solutions to industry problems, especially in chronic disease management," said Shireesh Sahai, CEO of Wolters Kluwer India, a panellist at the deliberation session.

Further, he said, "Clinical decision support tools can help clinicians with the right answers when they are needed and in the quickest time. For example, Wolters Kluwer offers innovative mobile solutions like UpToDate^® and Lexicomp^® which can immediately impact the quality of care and outcomes with evidence-based insights at the point of care." He added that these solutions offered, through mobile devices, support the healthcare community with integrated knowledge and software tools.

The HIMSS summit was attended by a galaxy of luminaries from the healthcare industry representing both the government and private sectors. Vamsi Chandra Kasivajjala, President, HIMSS Asia Pacific India, said, "In India, we see a burgeoning opportunity for deploying technology in healthcare that would benefit millions, given Prime Minister Modi's push for Digital India focus on health. We are pleased to provide this platform to organizations like Wolters Kluwer, among several other entities, to put forward their ideas for creating momentum through smarter use of information technology for healthcare apps that will bring about a qualitative shift in the healthcare sector in India in the coming days."

image courtesy- flickr.com/photos/jasonahowie/8585047526