The Health of Karnataka virtual E-Summit was presented by Intellect Bizware and SAP, with Kruxd as Data Partner, convened by Health Analytics Asia, and hosted by DataLEADS.

The keynote speaker, Dr T Jacob John, eminent Virologist and Former Head of Centre for Advanced Research in Virology, ICMR set the stage for the Summit with his thoughts on history of medicine and public health in India. He also credited European culture or the origin of science of medicines. He said that they came up with microbial causation of diseases, and revolutionized medicines with diagnostics and disease classification. Dr John said that health management has three interactive and integral subsystems – public health, healthcare, and biomedical research.

The Health of Karnataka virtual E-Summit was presented by Intellect Bizware and SAP, with Kruxd as Data Partner, convened by Health Analytics Asia, and hosted by DataLEADS.

Dr Kishore Kumar, Chairman of Cloudnine Hospitals, spoke of standardizing healthcare delivery across the country. He said, “Tertiary care is excellent in urban India. We can hardly boast of this in rural India”. He added that the government should focus on PPP- primary, preventive and public healthcare.

Suresh Ramu, Co-Founder and CEO of Cytecare Cancer Hospitals said while on one had the pandemic has brought about enormous challenges and disruptions it has also brought in welcome changes. He said, “There has been a lot of innovation and consumer expectations have changed. The government’s focus on primary health has definitely increased. Screening, as a concept for COVID-19, can actually be expanded into screening for all other lifestyle diseases.”

Anna Chandy, Social Psychologist and Founder, Anna Chandy Associates, brought into focus the aspect of mental health and wellbeing. Talking about the trauma that the pandemic has brought about Chandy said, “We need to account for inter-generational trauma, which if not addressed now, will be passed on the young and the youth.” She said the impact may not show up now, but will show up in the next five to six years. To strengthen mental health initiatives, she said it is time to focus on the three C’s – connectivity (with each other), compassion and collaboration.

Vaibhav Tiwari, Co-Founder and CEO of Portea Medical said that the pandemic has held up a mirror to our healthcare system in terms of how prepared we are for such crises. He said, “The [COVID-19] Wave 2 really shook as a country. But it has also, as a country, forced us to look at innovation, and look at new ways how healthcare can be managed or delivered.” The pandemic has shortened the learning curve for healthcare management in the country and it has changed it from being hospital-centric to patient-centric.

Talking about burden of disease, Ramu said this is also because of the late detection of cases, especially in cancer. He said, “The biggest problem is not only access to healthcare, and critical care but also the fact that it is detected late.” The need of the hour is awareness, and early detection and early screening.

The discussion considered the post-pandemic scenario in the country. What about children and should schools resume offline classes? Dr Kumar said that children falling seriously sick is a much lesser possibility as they do not have co-morbidities. The only way to ensure the safety of the children is for adults around them to get vaccinated. If schools have to reopen, every adult who the child comes across should be immunized. He also clarified that “the third wave is not going to selectively affect children without affecting the adults. Definitely children are less likely to suffer hypoxia or deaths like adults. It (the theory) is definitely not study-based.”

Sabahat Kazi, CEO, Intellect Bizware said technology could be the answer to most problems faced by healthcare today. Earlier, people were averse to using cloud technology, and there were issues with data privacy. He added, “As far as reach is concerned, today we are seeing internet in rural areas too. So, I see that obstacle going away and also the issue of data privacy, in some time, will go away.” He suggested that the government encourage telecom companies to invest in rural areas and that will really help a lot.

The speakers were asked what would be their one recommendation to the health minister of India, or Karnataka, specific to their areas.

Dr Kumar said, “Leave politics out of healthcare delivery. Learn from the experts, listen to the grievances, let talent flourish, lend your health to private healthcare, limit doles and freebies to religious institutions, and establish primary, public and preventive healthcare”

Kazi said, “Technology has a big role to play. And the way the government had encouraged green technologies earlier, they should also encourage development of healthcare devices, local manufacturing and so on.”

Anna Chandy said, “COVID has exposed our social structure… unless you address mental health, this is going to be a spiraling effect allover”

Ramu said, “Focus on improving access to healthcare for lifestyle diseases like cancer. Early detection and awareness, and removing the stigma.”

Vaibhav said, “We should cover homecare under insurance.”

The second part of the Summit involved a series of flash talks by some finest minds in the healthcare sector including Deepak Tuli, Co-Founder and COO, Eka.Care, Dr. Murthy Remilla, Honorary Secretary, Telemedicine Society of India, Head-Project Management, Human SpaceFlight Group – ISRO, Dr. Sunita Maheshwari, Chief Dreamer and Co-Founder, Teleradiology Solutions, Puneet Manchanda, CEO, Smart Diet Planner. Nilesh Maheshwari, Principal and Head- Public Health, South Asia, IQVIA and Ravi Chandra, Founder and CEO, MedPay.

You can watch the Health of India-Karnataka Edition Summit here. The Health of India series of virtual E-Summits now moves to Andhra Pradesh/ Telengana.

Please follow our social media handles to keep track of the dates, speakers and the agenda for this edition.