A COMMENTARY ON SHIFT IN BUSINESS STRATEGIES OF INDIAN HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY WITH COVID-19 AS A TRIGGER

Abstract
Medical tourism has become a booming industry in the recent past. People from all around the world cross the borders for better medical treatment. The leading destinations with markets for medical tourism include Malaysia, Thailand, India, Singapore, Turkey, and United States. Latest medical technology, high-quality services, insurance are a few of the criteria medical tourists seek for. As public-funded well-being insurance is unable to keep pace with the increasing demands of a growing aging population, patients from the United Kingdom and Canada travel to India to beat the huge waiting period for the routine procedures. The unprecedented COVID-19 outbreak has forced the market to observe diminishing growth. The pandemic is predicted to have a negative impact on this growing industry. The organizations, involved in the development of the medical tourism, stare at a dark future. It is, therefore, necessary to streamline the industry in view of this dismal scenario. However, with the growing technological development, one such platform that can bridge the distance in the health sector is telemedicine. This paper is an attempt to study the growing importance of telemedicine in a developing country like India. The research is based on both primary and secondary data along with a thorough literature review. Post lockdown telemedicine is likely to grow, and telemedicine is probably the future of the healthcare industry.

Keywords: Medical tourism, Waiting period, Telemedicine, Treatment, Pandemic, New normal

https://doi.org/10.37948/ensemble-2021-sp1-a010