The rising need of Home Healthcare in India

Some estimates point out our current geriatric population (aged over 60 years) at over 100 million. This is expected to grow to 325 million by 2050. It is estimated that lifestyle diseases will account for a whopping 74% of total deaths by 2030 (compared with 56% in 2008), with cardiovascular, cancer and diabetes accounting for a majority.

According to a WHO report, the doctor-to-patient ratio in India is 1:1674 — much below WHO's prescribed ratio of 1:1000. These statistics, combined with the change in lifestyle of Indian youth (which results in less time to attend to the sick), indicate a huge demand for home healthcare for the elderly.

With an aging population and the rapid increase in various types of chronic illnesses, there is an urgent need for quality healthcare. Private sector medical institutions and government hospitals are unable to cope since the average Indian finds them not easy to access.

Skilling people to aid in home healthcare is one major component of home-based care. There are many advantages that home healthcare services offer and for which customers are happy and willing to pay for, including: convenience — cuts down on travel time and expense; provides personalized attention on a one-on-one basis; and recovering in the familiar and comfortable environment of one's own home.

To tackle the sky-rocketing expenses of hospitals and admission charges, home healthcare can be the state-of-the-art innovation in healthcare in India.

One of the objectives of home healthcare skilling is not just to do the routine services like doctors at home or the nurses and physiotherapists at home. There is a large component — particularly looking at it from an Indian context where chronic diseases are becoming hugely prevalent — that home healthcare can make: in the management of chronic disease for patients at home so that these patients don't need to go through recurrent hospitalization.

The other area we can make a big impact in is around aged individuals, because when one ages they get into many medical complications and remain hospitalized with complications which don't require the intensity of a hospital stay but require the care that a hospital service might provide — those are the services one can provide at home. NICE Foundation is working towards providing hands-on skilling to people who are not from the medical profession to take care of such individuals.

NICE Foundation is providing hands-on, practical skills to people from the slums and peripheral villages of Hyderabad, with the Government of Telangana through the Municipal Administration.

NICE Foundation is also skilling

• Traditional Birth Attendants in remote and inaccessible terrains, with an objective to reduce mortality and morbidity
• ASHAs & Anganwadi workers in rural and tribal regions to deliver care the way it has to be
• Upskilling the ANMs in the rural and tribal regions