Concluding day of FE Healthcare Summit deliberated on health tech, telehealth, women’s health, mental health

The third day of FE Healthcare Summit on August 20, 2021 hosted online concluded with deliberations and panel discussions on health tech, telehealth, women’s health and mental health.

While delivering her keynote  address on on the theme “Riding The New Wave- the digital imperative for the Indian healthcare providers and the road ahead” on the occasion of the third day of Virtual FE Healthcare Summit on August 20, 2021, Dr. Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals Enterprises said, “Electronic Health Records (EHRs) will become a structural foundation for all data transfers and will be instrumental in generating the ability for semantic interoperability so that doctors and other stakeholders in the healthcare system can communicate effectively.”

“It will also lead to standard treatment guidelines, seamless health transactions and see the utilisation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for patient care,” she added.

The FE Healthcare Summit which began on August 18, 2021 and concluded on August 20, 2021 was attended by Central and State Government decision makers, Task force members, Surgeons, Doctors, Medical Engineers, frontline medical team members, CEOs, CIOs, CTOs of hospitals, healthcare and pharma companies, health tech providers, healthcare start-ups, technology experts from medical devices, software, and analytics companies, heads of academic institutions, large medical associations and heads of hospital supply chain and procurement.

While moderating a panel discussion on the topic of health tech and the need for evolution, Dr Sandeep Sharma, Managing Director, Deputy CTO at Deloitte Consulting, “We fought Covid with the help of life science industry, government and multi-stakeholder approach. All the stakeholders in the healthcare system collectively addressed the challenges to avert the pandemic crisis.”

Talking about digital interventions, Abhishek Kumar, Director IT, National Health Authority, Government of India said that digital interventions can successfully bridge the gap between the demand and supply side and therefore it becomes important for the healthcare providers and patients to be able to communicate through digital tools.”

He added that though technology is an enabling factor, it needs a conducive policy and regulatory framework.

During the panel discussion, Kunal Kapoor, Actor and Cofounder, Ketto.com revealed that during the pandemic since the social sector was over stretched, people in their individual capacity donated 40 million dollars through 13,000 campaigns, which speaks volumes about people centric crowdfunding campaigns and the ability to turn adversity to an opportunity.”

Talking about health infrastructure in the country, Hema Jagota, Director, Clinical Solutions, Elsevier healthcare said that healthcare is resource constrained which is very much evident in the time of Covid. Whatever solutions we deploy in our healthcare ecosystem should be focused towards improving productivity and the solutions should be peer-reviewed and authentic. Besides this, we should have a localised approach to be able to meet ground level healthcare challenges in the country through a localised knowledge base.

Dr. K Ganapathy, Director, Apollo TeleHealth Services and Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation while moderating the panel on Telehealth 2.0: Building a robust structure said, “Today healthcare depends to a large extent on policy makers, medical and business administrators, technologists and engineers. They have played a big role in the development of modern medicine and healthcare.”

Dr Ganapathy emphasized that besides being equipped with technology, doctors and medical professionals should be able to empathize with the patient community which will strengthen doctor patient relationship.

While speaking on the panel discussion on Telehealth 2.0: Building a robust structure, Manish Ranjan, Co-Founder and CEO, NanoHealth said, “Digitization of data has not only helped in terms of non-communicable diseases but also given a lot analytics on the patient’s health which we could share with the doctor and the patient in a faster way.”

Talking with reference to telemedicine and e – prescription, Naresh Hasija, Vice President at Viatris said, “As a healthcare company, we have created a global gateway to merge all credible healthcare solutions on tele-health from companies and start-ups who can utilise our expertise based out of any country in the world. E- prescription has been able to reduce a lot of burden on our primary healthcare system where the patient is even able to get medicines in a faster way.”

Giving his views on telehealth, Gautam Khanna, CEO, Hinduja hospital shared, “We are today connected with patients in 260 cities including the remote pockets through video and tele -consultations and even during Covid crisis, there are almost 100% teleconsultations happening through Hinduja Hospital based out of Mumbai.

While moderating the Panel Discussion on Women’s health – for a better society, Dr Jaideep Malhotra, Past President, Indian Society For Assisted Reproduction (ISAR), revealed that women make half of the world’s population. Their health is really important in context of the fact that out of the 130 million births in the world, 56 million women have anemia, 42 million have obesity, 25 million have malnutrition, 21 million have hyperglycemia and 8 million have hypertension.

Talking about solutions on women’s health, Sandeep Reddy, Head of Women’s Health, Abbott India Limited said, “Issues related to women’s health like maternal mortality, menopause and pregnancy complications can be addressed through awareness, following standard treatment protocols and accessible healthcare to women in the remote parts of the country.”

Abhishek Shah, Co-founder and CEO, Wellthy Therapeutics said that digital therapeutics are today able to help patients being monitored remotely and bring down the workload of the doctor.

While talking women health unmet need, Dr Hrishikesh Pai, President Elect, Federation of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists of India (FOGSI) 2022 said, “The adolescent age group generally faces malnutrition, diabetes, hypertension issues and in the post pregnancy phase women in the country have to tackle issues related to hormonal disturbances and even cancer. We have to a certain extent been able to balance the gender discrimination issue of girl child which today has got good regulatory oversight,”

While moderating the panel discussion on Inner peace – maintaining a mental balance Anindita Chatterjee, Mental Health Professional and Communication Specialist sought answers from the panelists on the surge in mental health cases and how to address the challenges.

Talking about mental health during pandemic, Dr. Kersi Chavda, Consultant, Psychiatry, Hinduja Hospital said that though there is no substitute for a face to face psychological counselling for people affected during the pandemic, there has been a surge in cases of mental health issues apart from the people alone with special needs whether they are children or in the geriatric segment.

Sharing solution on the mental health issues during pandemic, Dr. Nisha Khanna, Mental Health Practitioner at Bye Tense said, “There is an urgent need to acknowledge the negative thoughts rather than ignoring them and giving them a channel to vent them out either through proper communication with friends in a casual manner. Penning down negative emotions and thoughts and wiping them off is another relevant solution for maintaining mental balance and well being.”

While giving solutions on mental health issues, Tripti Gupta, Managing Partner, iPink The Color Of Health LLP said, “Food is the most important component to maintain mental health. Seasonal fruits and vegetables are the solution to the many gastro-intestinal issues which trigger mental health issues. Maintaining a routine is another good solution.”

Giving her views on the panel discussion on mental health, Dr Kamna Chhibber, Head, Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences, Fortis Research Institute, Gurugram said, “People have a lot issues revolving our relationships with their friends, family, children during Covid which had a bearing on their mental health besides the issues around anxiety and depression.”

While delivering his Valedictory Note on Rebuilding healthcare In India on the concluding day of the FE Healthcare Summit,  Dr. RS Sharma, CEO, National Health Authority (NHA), Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India (GoI) said, “National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) envisages to connect India through a network of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to leverage tools and technologies for last mile health care delivery. It also envisages to build domain specific registries as building blocks in the form of health facility registry to find hospitals online and to enable access to Electronic Medical Records (EMR) for healthcare accessibility.”