Study reveals definite shift from physical clinics towards telemedicine

Image source: Shutterstock

The Strategic Marketing Solutions & Research Centre (SMSRC), one of India’s leading healthcare research organizations based out in Delhi, along with US-based Krannert School of Management, Purdue University has conducted a first of its kind study among Indian physicians to understand the impact of COVID-19 on their practice. The study reveals a significant shift from a physical clinic visits to telemedicine due to various factors.

The study was conducted during June-July 2020 on a statistically significant and representative sample of 2116 physicians, across all key specialties in 80+ cities and towns of India.

The study highlights several statistically significant findings:

1)A higher proportion of younger Drs moved to telemedicine as compared to their older counterparts

2)Similarly, more female Drs moved to telemedicine (58%) vs their male counterparts (44%)

3)More-Metro physicians moved to telemedicine (52%) vs their non-metro counterparts (44%).

Further, while female Drs regardless of age and location had a high propensity to move to telemedicine, not all men stayed with physical practice with equal propensity. Younger male Drs and metro male Dr cohorts exhibited a higher shift towards telemedicine than their respective counter cohorts.

The study also sheds light on the exact nature of telemedicine used in patient assessment by the physicians.  Specifically, over 86% indicated they used their cellular audio calls for the purpose and about 62% indicated they used WhatsApp/Facebook or similar social media apps. By comparison, only about 11% indicated a move to practice management software (PMS). 

While more female physicians gravitated towards telemedicine, when it came to PMS adoption, a higher percentage of male physicians moved to PMS compared to female physicians.