Technology & innovation must for better medicare

Technology and innovation have been the two components for better healthcare delivery. The efforts of several state governments were showcased at the Healthcare Innovation Summit here on Friday.

“I would focus more on public component because we are working with government and we trying to strengthen the government in aspect of technology and medical aspects so that they can deliver more,” said Anuradha Medoju, Senior Regional Director, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India.

Drawing the attention to Assam’s efforts, JVN Subramanyam, Mission Director, National Health Mission, Department of Health Medical and Family Welfare, Government of Assam, said, “Assam comprises 70% of land mass of the North East with a population of around 3.2 crore. We have a lot of ethnic and demographic challenges that we face in terms of providing medical facilities. We launched mobile hospitals at areas where the people have to travel a lot to visit nearby hospitals. We also have a boat hospital.”

Shashi Bala Singh, Director, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Hyderabad, shared new technologies and inventions introduced and implemented in medical fraternity. “Nano technology and robotics have made much a headway and with each passing day, newer breakthroughs are made.”

Vinod Raj V, Technical Manager – eHealth, Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Kerala, shared the new initiative called eHealth which has been implemented in Kerala. “Our idea behind this initiative was earlier where patients had to carry all his medical reports and documents with him while visiting a doctor. But now due to this new innovation, they will have a soft copy of the reports and documents linked to their Aadhaar. When a patient visits the doctor, the latter can access his reports and documents online. This will help the doctor and patient keep a record of medical history.”

Arpita Khare, Director, Centre for Good Governance, Government of Telangana, spoke about innovation of government in IT technology for medical field. “We are trying to integrate and work out a solution here and to control the mistrust between PPP partners and people. We have been providing a lot of IT-related solutions to the government as well as others too. We have developed a mobile application for the patients in Telangana and it was piloted in Ranga Reddy. We have implemented all the services on the mobile application and the patients liked it for convenience. Using the application we got a very good response and I wish this application finds more use in the coming days.”