Policymakers and key opinion leaders in India’s public healthcare sector reconvened on the second day of Healthcare Sabha 2017, held at Novotel in Visakhapatnam, to continue the knowledge exchange with an aim to address the dominant challenges in the country’s public health system.
Sunil Sharma, joint secretary, Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY), ministry of health & family welfare, gave a great start to the second day of Healthcare Sabha 2017 with an insightful keynote address wherein he reiterated that availability, affordability and reliability are the cornerstones of any successful public health system. He also gave an overview on various government measures to facilitate a robust healthcare system which would effectively serve all the citizens of the country.
In the next session, Angshuman Sarkar, principal consultant, ThoughtWorks Technologies, spoke on creating an integrated health ecosystem, empowered by technology. He put forth several ideas to demonstrate how technological advances can generate significant positive outcomes in health. Sarkar also drew attention towards the myriad solutions provided by his organisation to strengthen the public health system.
The same theme was carried forward by subsequent speakers, Dilip Bhosale, head marketing, India, and Pranav Shah, head business development, IT India, Agfa Healthcare who urged the public healthcare fraternity to join the digital revolution to attain the goal of Universal Health Coverage (UHC). Thereafter, in a very interesting session by A Velumani, founder, CEO and MD, Thyrocare, he shared the story of his rise from a PSU scientist to a corporate leader without losing the values of social good.
The next session was on bridging delivery gaps in Indian healthcare through affordable medtech development and deployment. Dr Mauryashankar Sivaprakasam, director, Healthcare Technologies Incubation Centre, IIT Madras, spoke on various innovations being incubated at his organisation and emphasised that affordable innovations are the key to create a good public health system.
Prof MV Padma Srivastava, Department of Neurology, Neurosciences Centre, AIIMS, New Delhi, addressed another significant issue – Rising incidence of strokes and the need to scale up stroke care in India’s public healthcare facilities.
The succeeding speaker, Sabu Jose, GM — Government, OEM & Corporate Accounts — India Cluster, Carestream Health, spoke on the future of imaging and his company’s offerings in this sphere.
Sumit Marwah, CEO and Director, Dispoline India spoke on their solutions for infection control and their advantages in public health in his session titled ‘Single use dilemma’. The skill gap in healthcare was once again highlighted by Ashish Jain, CEO, Healthcare Skill Sector Council (HSSC).