By Prathiba Raju and Abhijeet Singh
New Delhi: As India has embarked on its journey to be developed by 2047, the much-overlooked healthcare sector desperately needs several pathfinders who can guide the country in a milieu full of bumps like ant-microbial resistance (AMR), climate change, compounded with the predictions of frequent pandemics.
Contributing in this regard ETHealthworld conducted the fourth edition of its annual flagship event, ‘Healthcare Leaders Summit’ themed on ‘Building a Resilient, Diversified and Inclusive Healthcare Ecosystem.’
The Summit provided a platform to discuss and share innovative solutions with industry leaders and key policy makers which can drive sustainable progress and build a resilient healthcare system that can support the nation’s evolving needs. Furthermore with its Healthcare Leaders awards segment the summit also attempted to honor the effort of those players who have adeptly carried the burden of our healthcare system.
The summit was supported by Takeda as the presenting partner; In association with Salesforce; Food and Nutrition partner Medirest; Google Cloud, Marengo Asia Hospitals, Care Hospitals and Novo Nordisk as Associate partners.
Supporting partners of the summit included DLF Foundation, Equirus, Fibe Emis, Carestream, Davaindia, City X-ray and Scan Clinic, Emversity and Ganga Reality. Krsnaa Diagnostics as diagnostics partner ; Humankind as hygiene partner; and Brainlab as Healthtech partner.
The summit commenced with a welcome address by Vikas Dandekar, Editor, ETHealthworld, followed by a Keynote Address on Negotiating “health and healthcare” in a fragmented and contested labyrinth of : Science, Technology, Engineering and VUCA by Dr Manashvi Kumar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.
Initiating his address Dr Kumar voiced his concerns over the growing challenges associated with day to day life, he said that,Basic necessities like air and water, which are currently considered public goods, may one day become private goods, regardless of the geographical location in the country where one resides.
He further underlined that, “Technology has a social cost so before putting that into action we must have to do a social appraisal of technology and it (technology) has to be handmaiden of public policy and public good.”
“While trying to bring down cost it is important to ensure that we do not venture into the realm of technological imperialism, digital stress etc. and have to take Digital health and digital in health as two separate things,” Dr Kumar added.
The Keynote address was followed by a Plenary Address on ‘New Approaches and New Methods: ‘BioE3’ Policy Driving Innovation in Biotechnology to the Next Stage in India’ by Dr Rajesh S Gokhale, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Government of India.
Delivering his address, Dr Gokhale shared that, with the deterioration of global commons (air, water, weather) planetary health is of utmost critical important secondly ever new innovation that is happening in present world is more expensive than it was before and it has become a expected paradigm that this going to happen.
“At a cost on which Indian pharma companies are delivering drugs across the country is much lower than any other part of the world and further what we need to think is that can we convert this from a technological perspective such that we take care of equity, social responsibility and inclusivity as well.”
“For a country like India which is facing the conundrum of being stuck in the middle income trap, digi-tech and green tech are two technologies which can help the country to escape this trap… Instead of cutting-pasting different models of the US, Europe, Japan etc. India needs to have its own growth model considering our demography, economy and geographic realities,” Dr Gokhale added.
Following the plenary address the summit proceeded with an inaugural panel discussion on ‘Promoting Inclusivity in Healthcare: Addressing Disparities and Access Barriers.’ The panelist for the session included Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Former Chief Scientist, WHO & Chairperson, M S Swaminathan Research Foundation; Rajiv Nath, Managing Director, Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices Ltd; Vishal Bali, Executive Chairman, Asia Holdings; Annapurna Das, General Manager, Takeda Biopharmaceuticals India and the session was moderated by Vikas Dandekar, Editor, ETHealthworld.
Through a video message Dr Soumya Swaminathan highlighted that, pandemic like phenomena are likely to happen more frequently in the future and the shocks we are experiencing because of climate change are impacting our health both directly and indirectly. It is very important to make equity the centre of the health system which will help to build a strong and resilient health system. Universal health coverage offers a promising solution in this regard by covering both the aspects i.e. delivery of services and financial protection (out of pocket expenditure).”
“While there is no doubt that the private sector is delivering healthcare services to people in India but at the same time there has to be a balance and if it is pushing more and more people into poverty then it is not the desired end result. So, what we need is a system which is government and regulated by the government,” Dr Swaminathan added.
Another panelist, Vishal Bali stressed, “To fill the massive demand and supply gap in healthcare requires a different approach and models.. If we make some aggressive push around creating models which would scale fast as well then we can create an opportunity to fill this gap.
“Given the massive prevalence of both communicable and non communicable diseases we (India) need to have a disease specific healthcare focus,” Bali added.
Annapurna Das said, “It (healthcare providers) needs an end to end scalable strategy and technology is the great enabler that removes barriers to access
Participating at the discussion, Rajiv Nath shared, “Any entrepreneur (medical device maker) who sells the product finds that the system is against his/her low cost affordable ethical pricing. If the labeled price is too low then procurement heads of financially driven hospitals are not happy to buy the product because they don’t make money on it and as a result the product becomes a failure. As a potential solution to this challenge Nath suggested, “MRP of medical devices needs to be rationalized by government regulations.”
The inaugural panel discussion was followed by a partner presentation by Michelle Irwee, Global Head of Access Medicines, Takeda, Singapore.
The partner session was succeeded by a panel discussion on ‘Innovative Financing for Targeted Oncology Drugs to Maximise Opportunities for Patients in India.
The panelist for the session included Dr Rahul Bhargava, Director & Head Department of Hematology, Fortis Memorial Research Institute; Jyotsna Govil, Chairperson, Indian Cancer Society, Delhi; Dr Ranjeet Sahoo, Additional Professor, Medical Oncology, AIIMS Delhi; Gopal Agarwal, Head of Pricing & Market Access, Takeda India; Jose Peter, Co-Founder and CEO, Arogya Finance and the session will be moderated by Dr Indira Behara Tankha, Vice President, Global Health Strategies.
Speaking at the discussion Dr Rahul Bhargava emphasised, “We need to shift towards value-based healthcare and establish India-centric guidelines for better patient care.” Jyotsna Govil urged, “People should prioritize regular checkups to avoid reaching a point where targeted therapy becomes necessary.”
Another speaker, Jose Peter underlined that, “Access to a cure is important but access to finance is even more important.” Whereas, Dr Ranjit Sahoo stressed, “Expensive drugs need to be used more economically and innovatively on India patients”, and the last speaker Gopal Agrawal voiced that, “We need to leverage health economics data in India.”
The discussion on Innovative Financing for Targeted Oncology Drugs to Maximise Opportunities for Patients in India was succeeded by a Partner Presentation by Akshay Murthy, RVP Sales, Salesforce India.
After the partner presentation there was a discussion, titled: From Bench to Bedside: Elevating Patient-Centric Care through Personalization, Technology Integration and Innovations panel. The participants for the session included Archna Gupta, Group Head, Operation & Service Excellence, Apollo Hospitals; Sunit Aggarwal, Hospital Chief Operating Officer, Care Hospitals; Ram Prasad N V, Director, Solution Engineering, Salesforce India; Dr Santy Sajan, Group Chief Operating Officer, Paras Health; Col Dr Sunil Rao, Group Chief Operating Officer, Sahyadri Hospitals and the discussion was moderated by Prabhat Prakash, Senior Content Producer, ETHealthworld.
At the discussion, Archna Gupta shared, “Standardisation is the key to successful clinical outcome”; Sunit Aggarwal said: “Intraoperative neuronavigation is like a GPS system which guides a neurosurgeon to reach the tumour site and remove it precisely”; Ram Prasad N V shared, “Ultimate goal of digital transformation goes through efficiency, availability and patient satisfaction”; Dr Santy Sajan said: “Personalisation is the present and future of healthcare”; and Col Dr Sunil Rao flagged, “We hardly use technology in Indian hospitals and rely on human brains.”
The summit further proceeded with another partner presentation by Vikas Chawla, Managing Director, Compass Group India.
Following the partner presentation, top CEO’s of the healthcare industry shared their insights at a discussion on ‘Strengthening Public-Private Partnerships for Sustainable Healthcare Solutions.’
The panel comprised Dr Santosh Shetty, CEO & Executive Director, Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital & Medical Research Institute; Dr Shuchin Bajaj, Founder & Director, Ujala Cygnus Hospital; Parvaiz Hussain, Business Head, Fibe; Siddharth Iyer, Director, Healthcare and Pharma Sector, Equirus Capital; Mitesh Dave, Group CEO, Krsnaa Diagnostics; and the discussion was moderated by Bhanu Prakash Kalmath S J, Partner and Healthcare Services Industry Leader, Grant Thornton Bharat.
Dr Shuchin Bajaj voiced, “The government needs to encourage more private players to deliver quality healthcare in rural areas’; Dr Santosh Shetty said: “There is a huge opportunity in CSR. What matters is how you channelise your funds”; Parvaiz Hussain said: “Affordability and accessibility are key to a successful healthcare model” ;Siddharth Iyer echoed, “PPP model provides more dynamic value in less gestation period”; and the last panelsit Mitesh Dave added, “PPPs is an amazing model both in terms of finances and patient care.”
The CEO panel discussion was proceed by a FireSide Chat on Revolution of DR solutions in Medical imaging : Impact in patient care and the speakers for the chat includes Dr Sanjay Dhawan, Group Director & Head Of Diagnostics, Radiology & Imaging, Paras Health; Dr Kulbir Ahlawat, Vice Chairman, Radiology & Imaging, Medanta; Nikhel Goel, Country General Manager – India Cluster, Carestream; Dr Aakaar Kapoor, CEO & Lead Medical Advisor, City X-Ray & Scan Clinic Pvt Ltd and the chat was moderated by Dr Shelly Mahajan, Lab Director and Clinical Lead, Mahajan Imaging & Labsm.
Following the FireSide Chat there was a virtual chat on India’s Medical Tourism Potential: Is it healing the world by Dr Raajiv Singhal, Managing Director & Group CEO, Marengo Asia Hospitals.
Speaking at the virtual chat Dr Raajiv Singhal shared that, “India’s medical value tourism (MVT) market to reach $13 billion by 2026.”
Continuing the virtual chat there was a partner presentation by Sunit Aggarwal, Chief Operating Officer, Care Hospitals.
After the partner presentation the summit proceeded with a panel discussion on Is Intelligent Automation healthcare CIO’s Key to Achieving Quality Management Maturity? The panelist for the session includes Dr Shafqat Khan, Public Health Officer, Government of J&K; Dr Susil Kumar Meher, Head-IT, AIIMS; Arun Goyal, Chief Information Officer, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital; Nitin Chopra, Head-IT, Fortis Healthcare and the discussion was moderated by Rashmi Mabiyan, Principal Correspondent,ETHealthworld.
Sharing their insights, Dr Shafqat Khan said, “Private sector in healthcare generates very less data as compared to their public counterparts’; Dr Susil Kumar Meher said, “Healthcare data needs to be properly standardised”; and Nitin Chopra, Head-IT, Fortis Healthcare, voiced, “Consolidating the legacy system data is a huge challenge for the healthcare industry.”
The panel discussion on Is Intelligent Automation healthcare CIO’s Key to Achieving Quality Management Maturity? was followed by a Partner Presentation on Future of Healthcare by Dr Sujit Paul, Group CEO, Zota Healthcare Ltd.
The partner presentation was succeeded by a FireSide Chat on Obesity Vs India: How real is the challenge and are we ready to fight the disease? where Dr Rajesh Rajput, Director Endocrinology, Medanta Hospital shared his insights and Vikas Dandekar, Editor, ETHealthworld moderated the chat.
At the Fireside chat Dr Rajesh Rajput highlighted, “Obesity drugs only help in maintaining weight not in reducing it. Doctors should prescribe obesity drugs only when needed.”
Following the FireSide Chat there was a Partner Presentation by Vivek Sinha, Founder & CEO, Emversity.
The partner presentation was followed by panel discussion on Creating an Error Free Supply Chain Model: What It Takes? The panelist for the session will be Dr N Venkatesan, Director & Chief Procurement Officer, Max Hospital; Madan Sampath, Chief Supply Chain Officer, HealthCare Global Enterprises Limited; Rakesh Aggarwal, Head, Procurement and SCM (PAN India), Rainbow Children’s Hospitals; Vikas Goyal, Head of Supply Chain Management, Fortis Memorial Research Institute and the session will be moderated by Prathiba Raju, Senior Assistant Editor, ETHealthworld.
Sharing their experiences, Dr N Venkatesan voiced, “Supply chain in healthcare is not about demand and supply but more about essentials, vitals and desirables’; Madan Sampath said: “ A centralised procurement system will help to reduce drug cost in India”; Rakesh Aggarwal underlined, “The regulatory requirements are driving up the cost of drugs for both patients and providers’; and Vikas Goyal voiced that, “To establish a robust supply chain in India, we need a data management system to track batch-wise inventory of drugs”.
After the panel discussion there was a knowledge partner Address by Dr Abhinav Akhilesh, Partner and Leader, Health and Human Services, Grant Thornton Bharat.
Following the knowledge partner address there was a celebrity talk by actor Mugdha Godse on ‘The Rise of Health-Conscious Wellness Shaping Modern Lifestyles’ and the summit concluded with the announcement of ET Healthcare Awards.
