Explained: Why India is stopping short of taking health care online

Digital records have a significant role to play even in India's tryst with telemedicine

A few years ago, when Harsh Parikh’s uncle travelled to India from the US and fell ill, he had to be taken to hospital. But it was a struggle for the Parikh family to share his medical records with the physician. They were all on paper, and not all with him.

“Sometimes it is a major issue like this. At other times there are minor irritants, like forgetting your child’s vaccination charts at home when you’ve taken her to the doctor. These made us realise the necessity of digitising health records,” say Mumbai-based entrepreneurs Parikh and Sohit Kapoor. The former