Pharma To Facilitate Self-Managing Chronic Diseases For Better Outcomes?

Pharma To Facilitate Self-Managing Chronic Diseases For Better Outcomes?

“India’s burden of non-communicable disease (NCD) is escalating, but still the country does not have sufficiently detailed data on NCDs for research and policy purposes.” This was captured in a recent study, titled “India’s escalating burden of non-communicable diseases,” published in The Lancet Global Health on October 03, 2018. Thus, many experts are pondering, how to contain this menace and lower the disease burden of NCDs, in this situation. One of the ways to address this issue is exploring some unconventional ways.

As several studies have established, improving ‘self-management’ of chronic diseases by patients, after proper diagnosis and a treatment plan being in place, is one of the pillars to lower the disease burden. One such study is titled, ‘Patients’ knowledge of their chronic disease,’ appeared on June 2013 – Vol 42 (6) issue in the journal of afp – Australian Family Physician. The paper highlights that effective tools, policies and other measures to help self-management, would facilitate the process. These arecritical not just for better outcomes, but also to reduce the overall treatment cost.

In a similar context, another recent article, titled ‘Why Apps for Managing Chronic Disease Haven’t Been Widely Used, and How to Fix It,’ published in The Harvard Business Review (HBR) on April 04, 2018 made an interesting observation. The authors wondered: “In an era where nearly, every consumer good and service — from books and groceries to babysitting and shared rides — can be purchased through an electronic transaction on a mobile device, it seems reasonable to think that more and more of our health care can also be managed using apps on mobile devices.”

This article will dwell in this area, based on several interesting and credible research findings. Nevertheless, to give a proper perspective, I shall start with a brief outline on the incidence of chronic diseases in India.

Increasing incidence of chronic diseases in India:

There are several recent reports confirming the ascending trend of non-infectious chronic diseases in India, two of which are as follows:…continue reading…