Technology Emerged As A Savior: Dr Shravan Subramanyam

One of the findings from the COVID Impact Assessment Survey was that public hospitals can expect some stimulus from the Government, which is likely to be invested in equipment and operations. The pandemic saw a shortage of trained medical personnel – investment should also go towards training and medical schools? Your view?  

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it varied challenges for the healthcare sector. Not only did it bring forth the lack of infrastructure, medical equipment and operations, but also a shortage of trained medical personnel. According to the recent COVID Impact Assessment Study undertaken by GE in India, it was seen that 74 per cent of healthcare facilities reported a decrease in surgical procedures and non- COVID diagnostic procedures amidst the pandemic as compared to normal times. Unless we focus on upskilling the medical workforce, it will be nearly impossible to utilize the best of our equipment in the most proficient manner. As an organization, we are constantly working towards skill development in healthcare. Our collaborations amidst COVID has enabled us to work towards upskilling and training frontline staff. During this time, we have successfully trained approximately 10000 radiologists and technologists across the world trained on the use of Imaging for COVID patients. Over 1000 doctors, intensivists, paramedics were upskilled by us on COVID-19 management and mechanical ventilation. We also trained nearly 1300 anganwadi workers & paramedics on early recognition of COVID in children and transportation of patients respectively.

Your views on digital technology becoming increasingly important in medicine. Investment in this area?  

COVID has made us realize the importance of digital technology in the field of medicine. The COVID Impact Assessment Study highlighted a clear decline in procedures for most modalities, barring COVID modality procedures like CT, X-Ray, Acute monitoring etc. During these tough times, technology emerged as a savior to not only treat and monitor patients remotely but also ensure connectivity with them at all times. It has been a bridge to drive accessibility, affordability and capacity building to improve outcomes and deliver quality healthcare. The study also highlights some of the key trends over the next few years one of which is the rapid increase in the adoption of digital technology within the next one year. 60 per cent of the respondents felt that there will be an increased focus on adoption of AI based solutions over the next 3 years, 48 per cent felt that there will be an increase in adoption of cloud-based healthcare solutions while 66 per cent said that there will be a rise in digital transformation initiatives. 

Our country should focus on digital technology as a part of the curriculum for medics – your views?  

The Digital India initiative launched by the Government in 2015, has led to India becoming the world’s second-fastest adopter of digital services. With increased pressure on labs, hospitals and other healthcare services due to the pandemic, the shift towards digital health initiatives has proved to be a gamechanger. Not only has it helped in bridging gaps in access through holistic, personalized solutions, regardless of location but also in identifying hotspots, contact tracing, testing, e-consults and vaccine registrations. A digital approach in the curriculum for medics can pave new ways for healthcare in future. We recently launched the Edison India Accelerator, a program that works with startups in India to develop solutions on the Edison platform for some of the toughest healthcare challenges existing today. The platform is an intelligence offering used by GE Healthcare’s internal developers and strategic partners to develop new healthcare applications, services and AI algorithms. 

With regard to remote patient monitoring, what will be the percentage increase over the next two years? (Globally and in India both)  

According to the survey done by GE, in the next one year, 38 per cent of global customers and about 48 per cent customers in India are set to grow their Investments in remote patient monitoring, at least by a magnitude of 25 per cent. About 30 per cent of the large hospitals in India are already seeing increase in Tele-health adoption, and another 46 per cent believe this will increase in the next 1-3 years. 

Emergence of health tech in India – challenges and opportunities.

Virtual care is now mainstream as the pandemic witnessed shortage of intensivists and infrastructure. Besides integrating data and monitoring multiple patients simultaneously, critical patients can be prioritized. For example, Centricity, a Tele-ICU service from GE provides effective remote access for critical patients. Similarly, Tele-ECG consultation is helping general practitioners manage patient triage and make quick decisions. AI and IoT being 30 times faster with 99 per cent accuracy are being used by clinicians to predict, test, automate and improve patient experience and by hospitals to smoothen transfers, streamline workflow and discharge procedures.  In a way, it has transformed the Medical Devices industry into MedTech. 

However, with opportunities comes new challenges. Tackling them requires a sophisticated and cost-effective business platform like computational power, telemedicine, remote operations, digital interfaces, supply-chain logistics. It also requires a high-level infrastructural approach and highly skilled workforce. 

What can the Government do to improve out healthcare system? How can private players contribute?  

The need of the hour focuses on collective spirit and synergy among stakeholders to promote effective ways of doing business and a transparent regulatory environment to create a win-win situation. The current pandemic has also given private players some invaluable lessons on how it is necessary to demonstrate agility and adaptability in this era of digital knowledge, connectivity across multiple platforms, work from home (WFH) and personalized healthcare. No institution or organization can single handedly drive meaningful impact in a crisis or in changing the trajectory of healthcare. It is critical to identify and activate an ecosystem of motivated and capable partners including a vibrant healthcare startup community in India to increase reach, affordability, effectiveness and consumer patient outcomes. We must act now to shape new pathways for democratizing healthcare with digital transformation.

Please tell us about Wipro GE’s new initiatives.  

Our focus is centered around enabling quality patient care by addressing the challenges sprung forth by the pandemic. Some of our latest launches focus on this area. Some initiatives that we have embarked on include Tele-ICU Remote Monitoring Solutions, where we have connected nearly 800 beds connected since 2020 and enabled ICU care in remote Tier-II and beyond towns. We mitigated shortage of intensivists and nurses in the country and connected around 270 beds for Apollo Hospital-Hyderabad, Kainos Hospital-Rohtak, Apex Hospital-Jaipur and enabled 60 Home-ICU beds with Saiman, Delhi. AI has also played an important part in COVID-19 management for us. Our Lunit Insight CXR Thoracic Care Suite and Predible’s LungIQ for COVID-19 Severity Scoring on CT enabled the doctors. Our automated CT technology, Thoracic VCAR gave doctors the ability to make quantitative measurements of the lungs to aid in the diagnosis of lung issues. In many ways, technology adoption was fast-tracked due to the global pandemic. The changes we were predicting to see in the next 10 years in healthcare, we witnessed in a year. We need to ensure this upward graph remains so as to enable us to reach the goal humanity needs to witness in the healthcare delivery system.