Digital First Magazine – July 2021 – India Edition – Medical Technology Trends in 2021

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INDIA EDITION

First Stop for Digital, Technology and Business Insights

HOW DIGITISATION CAN MAKE THE HEALTHCARE

ECOSYSTEM

TRANSPARENT AND HASSLE-FREE ASHVINI DANIGOND, FOUNDER & CEO, MANORAMA INFOSOLUTIONS PVT LTD

IMPORTANCE OF

CYBERSECURITY IN THE HEALTHTECH SECTOR PANKIT DESAI, CO-FOUNDER & CEO, SEQURETEK

HOW HAS

MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY BENEFITED THE PUBLIC SATISH KANNAN, CO-FOUNDER & CEO, MEDIBUDDY

IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 SECOND WAVE ON THE INDIAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM VISHAL JAIN, DIRECTOR, INSPIRA

DIGITAL HEALTH SOLUTIONS TO BECOME

IMPERATIVE IN A PANDEMIC AFFECTED WORLD AMOL R. DESHMUKH, FOUNDER, MEDRABBITS

THE DISTINCT FEATURE OF X-RAY

TECHNOLOGY IN COVID-19 DIAGNOSTICS NAVJOT SINGH, PRESIDENT – MEDICAL IMAGING, TRIVITRON HEALTHCARE

MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY TRENDS IN 2021

JULY 2021

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July 2021

Vol - 2 Issue - 4

Medical Technology Trends in 2021 Head of Advisory Board Dr. Varughese K.John, PhD

Managing Editor Sarath Shyam

Consultant Editors

Dr. Johny Andrews Navya Venkatesh Shyam K

Anna Elza Roshni Rajagopal Nikita Thakur

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Ajay K Das Manjunath R Rohith Poojary

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Jyoti Kumari Reshma Ashokan

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Digital First Magazine July 2021

Digital First Magazine is a digital magazine published by Connecta Innovation Private Limited.

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MANAGING EDITOR’S NOTE

Technology, New Norm and the Future of Healthcare

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ealthcare as an industry has not been curious about adapting to any changes, especially technological innovations. For instance, digital healthcare trends like telemedicine, IoT devices, the inclusion of AI, and virtual reality surgical training were considered futuristic until the beginning of 2020. However, the pandemic triggered massive disruption in the healthcare industry.

It pushed the sector to invest more in innovative new technology. Now, new medical technologies attract massive investment, helping the industry improve health equity worldwide. With that, the global medical technology device market has reached a new high, and will value USD 603B in 2025, says industry estimates.

Total funding for digital health initiatives hit an all-time high of USD 26.5B in 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic catalyzing investment growth. Funding for telemedicine alone hit USD 4.3B. Being among the top 20 markets for medical devices worldwide, India provides a significant opportunity for

companies working on innovative medical technologies.

India’s medical devices market stood at USD 11B in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 65B in 2024. There is no doubt that the ongoing pandemic has instigated rapid technology advancement and quick regulatory approvals.

However, the healthcare industry needs to take innovation seriously even after the pandemic repercussions. With massive scope for improvement, medical technologies can create a better future and greater health equity for everyone.

Understanding the need of the hour, we have come up with a special issue focusing on Medical Technology Trends in 2021. In this issue, we have collated insights and opinions of industry leaders on trends shaping the future of healthcare delivery. We have also featured a handful of companies offering innovative healthcare technology services in this challenging time. We hope our efforts will help readers learn more about the latest medical technologies and their long-term ramifications.

Enjoy Reading.

Sarath Shyam

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ADVISORY BOARD

Dr. Kuldeep Nagi, Ph.D, MBA, BSc.

Program Director of Ph.D, Recipient of Fulbright Fellowship Award & Dan Evans Award for Excellence and Writer columnist.

Mr. Amulya Sah, PGD PM & IR, PG Diploma in PM&IR (XISS Ranchi)

Senior Director HR. Former Head HR group Samsung R&D Institute India,Transformative HR Leader, Change agent, Digitization facilitator, Engagement architect, Trainer and Diversity champion.

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Dr. Varughese K.John, PhD, MBA, MPhil, MCom, LLB. Former Program Director, MS in Management Program, GSATM - AU

Dr. Ajay Shukla, Ph.D, MBA, BE. Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Higher Education UAE

Mamta Thakur Former CEO (ASEAN), Arc Skills

Mr. Sreedhar Bevara, MBA, B.Com Former Senior General Manager: Panasonic Middle East & Africa, Thought Leader, Speaker & Author of ‘Moment of Signal’ (Amazon’s International Bestseller)

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COMPANY SPOTLIGHT

CONTENTS

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4baseCare

CURIA App

FEDO

USING GENOMICS FOR PRECISION HEALTHCARE

THROUGH THE CANCER JOURNEY

INTEGRATING DEEP TECH TO PREDICT HEALTH RISKS

MR. HITESH GOSWAMI, CEO & CO-FOUNDER, 4BASECARE

DR GUNJAN BHARDWAJ, FOUNDER & CEO, INNOPLEXUS AG

PRASANTH MADAVANA, CEO & CO-FOUNDER, FEDO

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12 OUR HEALTHCARE INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDS TO GO DIGITAL AND BECOME A UNIFIED PLATFORM

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PyraMed India

Redcliffe Life Diagnostics

BREAKING NEW GROUND IN TELEMEDICINE

TAKING THE FIRST STEP INTO GENOME TESTING

DR. KETAN PARIKH, SENIOR PEDIATRIC SURGEON & FOUNDER, PYRAMED INDIA

MR. DHEERAJ JAIN, FOUNDER, REDCLIFFE LIFE DIAGNOSTICS

IN MY VIE W

KIRAN PENUMACHA, FOUNDER & CEO, GRENE ROBOTICS

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CONTENTS 28

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THE POWER OF ANTIGEN TESTS

IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 SECOND WAVE ON THE INDIAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

HOW HAS MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY BENEFITED THE PUBLIC

VISHAL JAIN, DIRECTOR, INSPIRA

SATISH KANNAN, CO-FOUNDER & CEO, MEDIBUDDY

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HOW A MODERN CLOUD ENVIRONMENT IS HELPING AND ACCELERATING THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY AMIDST COVID

INNOVATIONS AND TRENDS IN HEALTHCARE INFRASTRUCTURE

THE DISTINCT FEATURE OF X-RAY TECHNOLOGY IN COVID-19 DIAGNOSTICS

RAVIDEEP SINGH, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, CREATIVE DESIGNER ARCHITECTS

NAVJOT SINGH, PRESIDENT – MEDICAL IMAGING, TRIVITRON HEALTHCARE

E XPERT OPINION

RAJESH PATEL, CEO-IVD(INDIA), TRIVITRON HEALTHCARE

JESINTHA LOUIS, DIRECTOR, G7 CR TECHNOLOGIES INDIA PVT LTD.

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TELEMEDICINE INNOVATION: HOW IT CAN KEEP UP WITH THE RURAL HEALTH SYSTEM AND KEEP PEOPLE ALIVE AT LOWER COSTS

ASHVINI DANIGOND, FOUNDER & CEO, MANORAMA INFOSOLUTIONS PVT LTD

DR. MALINI SABA, FOUNDER & CHAIRMAN, SABA GROUP & ANANNKE FOUNDATION

92 IS SUPERFICIAL DATA MISLEADING HEALTHCARE PRIORITIES IN INDIA? NITTHIN CHANDRAN, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, MEDPIPER TECHNOLOGIES

LE ADER’S INSIGHTS

HOW DIGITISATION CAN MAKE THE HEALTHCARE ECOSYSTEM TRANSPARENT AND HASSLE-FREE

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DIGITAL HEALTH SOLUTIONS TO BECOME IMPERATIVE IN A PANDEMIC AFFECTED WORLD

E-PHARMACIES ARE THE SAVING GRACE DURING THE PANDEMIC

A CALL TO EMBRACE CLOUD IN HEALTHCARE: INDUSTRY INSIGHTS IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE PANDEMIC

IMPORTANCE OF CYBERSECURITY IN THE HEALTH-TECH SECTOR

AMOL R. DESHMUKH, FOUNDER, MEDRABBITS

B L MITTAL, FOUNDER & EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN, SASTASUNDAR.COM

DR. SHARADA RAO, VERTICAL HEAD – DELIVERY, LIFE SCIENCES, BIRLASOFT

PANKIT DESAI, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, SEQURETEK

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IN MY

VIEW

Our Healthcare Infrastructure Needs to Go Digital and Become a Unified Platform Kiran Penumacha, Founder & CEO, Grene Robotics

Can you please elaborate on how the Pandemic impacted the Healthcare Industry? How did Grene Robotics cope with this impact?

Healthcare systems across the globe were not designed to deal with a crisis of this magnitude. This brought an unpredictable, large-scale health challenge that required urgent mobilization of resources, affecting the whole population. However, for the industry it enhanced the need for responsive healthcare system which can enable: • Zero touch patient journey • Online scheduling of appointments • Remote healthcare facilities • Virtual consultations • Electronic Medical Records • Insurance cover for remote healthcare providers We have designed and developed solutions that enable healthcare to reach its beneficiaries and not the other way around. We are currently

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Kiran founded Grene Robotics with the singleminded objective of building Autonomous technologies that make humans more efficient.

He has nurtured Grene Robotics to become a globally admired company that takes great pride in innovation and the people behind it. Before founding Grene Robotics, Kiran has been widely recognised for his contribution in the field of autonomous technologies. He holds patents for Automated Presence Status, Presence Status-Based Communication Filtration and Authentic-based Combination of Inputs.

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implementing such a solution for a large scale public sector enterprise with 50 lakh beneficiaries. We believe that companies which offer healthcare benefits for their employees should use this mechanism because the moment healthcare becomes virtual, so does the healthcare plan.

Thanks to the pandemic, every industry including healthcare has realised the importance of digitalization and automation. It is especially important for the healthcare sector in India, where healthcare infrastructure is poor and a large part of the population still does not have easy access to reliable healthcare facilities. Here, technology can make a big difference by bringing virtual access to doctors and healthcare professionals to even the most remote places.

What are the latest innovations in your field that have helped grow your service/ business?

Three innovations that have enabled significant change our line of business are: • The smartphone and its sensory capability • Wearable healthcare tech • Cloud-based AI How can healthcare providers, both digital and real life sources, be more efficient?

Our healthcare infrastructure needs to go digital and become a unified platform where activities from one department to another happen seamlessly without much human intervention. Today most of our healthcare systems are outdated. There is a lack of sufficient physical infrastructure, and simple things like scheduling appointments and virtual patient health databases are missing. These age-old traditions need to change.

The infrastructure needs to be upgraded. With new generation platforms like GreneOS, this transformation will be faster and smoother.

Tell us the founding story of Grene Robotics.

What are the significant challenges you faced in the beginning and how did you overcome those challenges?

My tryst with autonomous solutions started when I was at Carnegie Mellon University where I worked

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Today most of our healthcare systems are outdated.

There is a lack of sufficient physical infrastructure, and simple things like scheduling appointments and virtual patient health databases are missing

on building autonomous systems for the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

After that experience I was left thinking how autonomous solutions can be made available for various industries.

When I entered the enterprise workforce with my first job at Pitney Bowes, I got the firsthand experience of how broken and inefficient today’s enterprise and government operations were.

I realised from my experience at CMU that to bring robots into the workforce we will need a new breed of systems powered by autonomy.

This inspired me to start Grene Robotics and build a new generation platform (today called GreneOS) on which humans and machines can co-exist.

Another thing that has always fascinated me is nature’s mechanism of autonomous engineering.

It’s just amazing how nature has a solution for every challenge and builds sustainable and regenerative designs. So taking inspiration from nature’s intrinsic design mechanism I decided to build autonomous solutions and founded Grene Robotics in 2008.

One of the most challenging tasks was to convince investors to invest into R&D. The usual thought is that R&D companies use the investor money to fail but fail fast. The fact is that without sufficient R&D you are probably not doing any significant disruption. If I would have said that everyone will work from home 10 years back, I would have been laughed at. But then we experimented and went virtual much before the pandemic and have been successful because of our research.

What are the products/services offered at Grene Robotics today that makes it unique?

Grene Robotics offers Robots as a service. We design, develop and deploy autonomous solutions for Enterprises, Defense and Government bodies.

Our solutions are built on a proprietary AI platform backed by ML algorithms and cognitive computing technologies that can self-learn, selfcorrect and continuously evolve enabling human beings to do more meaningful work while the machines do the everyday mundane jobs.

Under the Enterprise section, we currently cater to the telecom and hospitality industries where we offer reduction of operational expenses by 30% by unifying People, processes and machines on a single platform and delivering artificially intelligent decision making.

Our Defense solution called DefOS is a firstof- its- kind autonomous defense operating system that will redefine the way militaries go into war or successfully avoid one from happening by early threat detection. We are the first Indian company to develop C5ISRT capability that can deliver Autonomous Command, Control, Communication, Computers, Collaboration, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and targeting (C5ISRT) solutions to the armed forces, taking Indian defence capabilities at par with the best in the world.

For Responsive Cities, we have built CityOS that brings together all the disparate human and infrastructure assets of a city together, controlled by an autonomous system delivering to the needs, wants and desires of each citizen. In the past we enabled a nationwide emergency response system - EMRI 108 - that reduced the emergency response time of ambulances from allocation and reach time to the incident by 70%.

We can say that we are at the cusp of the 5th industrial revolution bridging the gap between human and machine interoperability, re-engaging human intelligence to the next level. At Grene Robotics, we deliver robotics as a solution for a self-reliant, advanced, integrated future.

Tell us about the team at Grene Robotics that has helped you build the organization that it is today.

We are a team of highly driven individuals who are collectively working towards building autonomous solutions for a better tomorrow. Our leadership team is composed of prominent experts and technologists from various industries who bring decades of experience and subject matter expertise to the organization.

Also, we are a remote working company and had started this practice much before the pandemic forced people to adopt this lifestyle. Today, the Grene team collaborates across geographies to deliver autonomous solutions.

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How do you ensure quick response to medical emergencies?

We believe in the saying that a nation’s health is a nation’s wealth. In the past, with GreneOS, we enabled India’s first nationwide emergency response system to reduce their response time from 7 minutes to 20 seconds.

Apart from this, as mentioned above we have also designed and developed a responsive healthcare solution for a large govt. organisation that provides 360-degree zero-touch customer journey from scheduling of appointments to online consultations and ensuring remote healthcare facilities.

What are some of the lessons you learnt throughout your journey that has helped you grow and excel?

One thing that I have learnt in my entrepreneurial journey is that pain builds character. It’s only through great effort that something worthwhile emerges.

Tell us your journey so far as an entrepreneur.

How did you tackle obstacles that came in your way?

I have taken failures in my stride. Infact, as an organization, we encourage failures because we believe that every failure is a learning experience.

Could you throw some light on the milestones you have achieved during your journey as an entrepreneur?

At Purdue University, I built my first hacking program to run an ICQ chat application on the protected campus network. This went viral in adoption across the campus.

As an indirect reward the campus computing center recruited me as a lab assistant.

Then I built the world’s highest-altitude research centre at 17,664 sq ft for DRDO in J&K which has been recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records. I have patents for Automated Presence Status, Presence Status-Based Communication Filtration and Authenticbased Combination of Inputs.

My second venture, SA Habitat, was in the real estate sector where I built the world’s most energyefficient smart housing community that also housed India’s first smart microgrid.

I also co-founded the energy efficiency company, Valence Energy, that was later acquired by US-based Serious Materials, which is now called Serious Energy.

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Tell us a little bit about your education and life as a student. What lessons did you learn before your days in the industry that has made you the leader you are today?

I studied computer engineering at Manipal Academy of higher education. From there I went to Purdue University where I majored in computer science and mathematics.

I did my masters in Bioinformatics, specialising in Computational Biology from Carnegie Mellon University.

My real lessons were through the people I met in these various institutions. Mix of India in Manipal, mix of Central America at Purdue and a mix of the world at CMU.

It’s just amazing how nature has a solution for every challenge and builds sustainable and regenerative designs Who would you consider to be a significant influence to you professionally and why?

I am a fan of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk because both have been visionaries and believe in connecting the dots forward rather than backward.

Could you tell us more about the upcoming projects and goals you are currently working on?

Recently we announced that Grene Robotics has designed and developed India’s first 100% indigenous Unified, Distributed and wide-area Autonomous Drone Defence Dome called Indrajaal or AD3. Indrajaal will protect a large area of 1000-2000 sq. km per system against threats such as UAV’s, Incoming Weapons, Loitering Munitions, Low-RCS targets autonomously. Similarly, we are developing solutions in the healthcare, hospitality, and forest conservation sectors.

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COMPANY SPOTLIGHT

4BASECARE

USING GENOMICS FOR PRECISION HEALTHCARE

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octors, researchers, and health professionals around the globe continue to find innovative ways to treat, if not cure, cancer.

Being one of the leading causes of death in the world, many medical professionals and patients alike continue to try and find viable solutions to deal with cancer and come up with strategies to understand the disease. At 4baseCare, the aim is to provide people with ground-breaking technology and research.

By using techniques of genomics and digital health, it goes beyond being a simple telemedicine platform to cater to cancer patients and caregivers the support they need.

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4baseCare is essentially a group of dedicated people who strive to use their experience working in pharma drug discovery and healthcare, with cutting-edge technology like Genomics to gain insights and hope in fighting cancer. “We believe that we now have the right tools and technology to give us a fighting chance against a disease like cancer. We want to build a company that leverages these concepts, technology, and advancement in science to introduce solutions that can give better treatment options to patients and help save or extend their life,” says Mr. Hitesh Goswami, CEO & Co-founder of 4baseCare.

Mr. Hitesh Goswami, CEO & Co-founder, 4baseCare

OUR CLINICAL OPERATIONS GIVES US AN OPPORTUNITY TO IMPACT PEOPLE’S LIVESINWAYSWECAN NEVER IMAGINE

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Providing a unique service Being a service that caters to oncological solutions, 4baseCare isn’t like any other. With advanced Genomics and Next-gen digital health technology, users and patients have the care they need to smoothen the ride through their cancer journey. Three years later, 4baseCare has made personalized treatment an exciting reality. The company has launched series of cancer gene panel tests to help doctors customize

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treatment for each patient based on their genetic makeup and comprehensive molecular profiling of the patient’s tumor sample.

In January 2019, 4baseCare developed and launched its first comprehensive cancer gene panel test (TARGET Focus) that was designed to profile genomic aberrations in 352 genes. Being the first gene panel of its kind in India, this test essentially identifies immunotherapy markets like tumor

WE WANT TO BUILD A COMPANY THATLEVERAGES THESE CONCEPTS, TECHNOLOGY, AND ADVANCEMENT IN SCIENCE

mutational burden (TMB), a biomarker of response to immunotherapy, and Microsatellite Instability predictive Biomarker for Cancer Immunotherapy through Next-generation sequencing that allows biotechnologists to come up with innovative solutions.

Since then, the company has created three more tests under their TARGET portfolio, called TARGET Core, IO and Absolute. To scale up, 4baseCare has partnered with multiple hospitals and research centers, namely AIIMS, ACTREC-TMC, Fortis, St John’s Research Institute, and Shankara Hospital to develop their first population-specific cancer gene panel called, Target Indiegene.

With the advantage of digital health technology, 4baseCare also came up with their second solution called OncoBudddy, a first-of-its-kind unique digital platform that provides 360-degree holistic support to cancer patients. “Right from connecting patients to experts and other patients to get any query answered to getting access to highly curated videos, blogs, and articles on cancer care and helping them digitize and manage their medical records to allow them to easily consult with the doctors through virtual consultation, OncoBuddy supports patients through their every need in their cancer journey,” Mr. Hitesh elaborates.

Exemplary Leadership Mr. Hitesh stops at nothing to achieve what he set his mind to. Talking about some of the milestones he reached, he shares his most significant one where he decided to drop out of his MBA program at the University of San Diego in 2011, return to India and establish his first startup Bionivid Technology. “From a company perspective, being the 1st Indian company from Asia-Pacific to be selected for the Illumina Accelerator program in 2019 has been the most significant milestone,” he says.

As the world moves towards precision medicine, 4baseCare wants to build a research-focused system that leverages technology and advancement in science to create solutions that can provide better treatment options to cancer patients. Being the only company that combines technological advances in both genomics and digital health, the company was incepted as the first Asian healthcare organization backed by Illumina (the Global Genomics leader) through their Illumina Accelerator program.

The world is moving towards precision medicine, but research is still far from individualized treatments.

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I wanted to build a research-focused company that leverages technology and advancement in science to create solutions that can give better treatment options for patients who are battling cancer. Thus, 4baseCare was incepted as the first Asian healthcare organization backed by Illumina (the Global Genomics leader) through their Illumina Accelerator program. “As a company, we believe that if technology is not affordable, it has no value. Our gene panels used for guiding the treatment of cancer patients are one of the most affordable panels available globally, some at almost 1/4th the cost for cancer gene tests in a similar segment,” says Mr. Hitesh.

Teamwork leads to success A tagline like, “Together, We Beat Cancer” says a lot when talking about the core team at 4baseCare. With experts from different fields, Mr, Hitesh feels very fortunate to have a group of people who believe in the vision of the company and work towards a unified purpose. “Every team member understands that their actions directly or indirectly impacting a patient’s life.

The work we are doing every day through our research and our clinical operations gives us an opportunity to impact people’s lives in ways we can never imagine.

A report provided by us might help the patient to get on a treatment which might add years to the life of the patient and allows a family to spend more time together,” he shares.

In this regard, 4baseCare is equipped with three labs in Bangalore that drive genomics research and development efforts, including the Bangalore Bioinnovation Centre (BBC) and Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB).

In addition to these, they also have a commercial partnership with Wipro and have a state-of-the-art Genomics Access lab at Wipro in Bangalore. The support they receive from Wipro and from state and center-funded Bio-Incubators allows 4baseCare access to cutting-edge technology and human resources that help manage R&D and operational costs and transfer the benefits directly to the patients.

With an aim to improve clinical outcomes and increase the quality of life for cancer patients, 4baseCare continues to conduct research on viable and cost-effective solutions for cancer patients around the world. “Our goal is to leverage technology to build solutions that are affordable and accessible to patients.

In short, we want to beat the crap out of cancer!” says Mr. Hitesh.

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LEADER’S

INSIGHTS

How a Modern Cloud Environment is Helping and Accelerating the Healthcare Industry Amidst COVID Jesintha Louis, Director, G7 CR Technologies India Pvt Ltd.

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he COVID-19 pandemic that the whole world is battling has put the world’s healthcare infrastructure under immense stress and has been stretched to the maximum. Especially, in a Country like India with over 1.4 billion population the first challenge was awareness, then containing the spread, ensuring the infected received care in time and vaccinating the entire population. The scale of operation is just massive and our one day vaccine count may very well be a population of other countries.

Technology is playing a big role in fighting against COVID and Cloud is definitely the enabler in delivering the speed and scale that the current situation calls for. Some of the large Cloud providers setup war rooms to support the healthcare infrastructure. One of the top 3 providers, pulled out most of their capacity and dedicated it for healthcare application and the second one quickly hired a special operations team to procure and setup additional capacity in 6 months which would in a normal situation take up to 2 years.

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Jesintha Louis is one of the Directors at G7 CR Technologies leading the Customer facing teams and strategic partnerships; aligning organizations focus on embracing Emerging Cloud technologies trends, insights and packaging Cloud technology solutions that are easily consumable further driving quick adoption. Wearing a hat of Technology Evangelist, she has consulted and worked with over 300 businesses, understanding their business needs & curating technology solutions that improve productivity, sustain growth & increase efficiency for business operation. She specializes in Cloud technology & business applications.

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Cloud delivers the ease of deployment and scale required to support the current situation, which has helped build apps to help fight COVID. The first step begins by providing the necessary infrastructure to be able to work, learn & stay safe at home. Ever app that has made this possible from grocery deliver to modern VDI desktops are all hosted on Cloud. In fact, a national platform for school education by NCERT is currently hosted on Cloud to support the learning needs of teachers & student across 35 states.

Cloud is definitely the enabler in delivering the speed and scale that the current situation calls for

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Here is how modern Cloud environment is helping and accelerating the healthcare infrastructure and industry amidst COVID. Contact tracing – The top contact tracing applications are hosted on Cloud with modern deployment architecture to handle the magnitude of tracing required for India to effective trace the spread of COVID. Work from home – Modern desktop offering on Cloud has helped tons of businesses who relayed on Desktops physical located at office to facilitate safe work from home option for all their employees.

Bed allocation – While it is a great relief that the situation has gotten better as rationing bed was something none of us had thought of, but technologies on Cloud were able to scale and do its best to ensure the ones in need of critical care were prioritized.

Vaccination – The only way to protect ourselves and the world is by getting vaccinated and with the scale of vaccine drive required for Country like India technology powered by Cloud again comes to rescue and the largest app used in India to track vaccination is also hosted and powered

by Cloud.

Cloud has definitely enabled the speed of development, scale & availability required to fight the current situation. In addition, Cloud has also powered some innovation to get by the new normal like Video analytics, AI based object detection to ensure people working in kitchens & offices wear mask and adhere to safety protocols.

More solutions underway to help airports with facial recognition and automating the entire travel experience.

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EXPERT

OPINION

The Power of

Antigen Tests Rajesh Patel, CEO-IVD(India), Trivitron Healthcare

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he novel coronavirus conjures up such images of healthcare warriors inserting long pipe-like sticks with soft brushes up a nose and twirling it around for a few seconds. An extremely good specimen is apparently collected only when the swab goes far back for cells and fluids from the entire passageway that connects the base of the nose to the back of the throat.

But unlike an RT-PCR test that studies the genetic disposition of the novel coronavirus from nasal samples, the Antigen test detects the presence of the nucleocapsid protein which is part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the coronavirus disease (COVID). Not only is the Antigen test less sensitive and more specific, but it also most certainly rules out the asymptomatic and symptomatic carriers of COVID-19 in a quicker and cost-effective way.

While a positive Antigen test may be informative, a negative result would need to be confirmed by the more sensitive nucleic acid test and

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Rajesh has diverse experience in sales, marketing and business development in healthcare segment across various business verticals inclusive of pharmaceuticals, Clinical Research Organizations, Clinical Trials & IVD and Medical devices. He has a deep understanding of sales, marketing and business development. He has played a vital role in international strategic planning, budgeting, business expansion and new product launches. He has, throughout his stint at various leading corporations, been at the forefront in managing and lading large teams. In his role as the CEO-IVD (India), Rajesh is committed to developing, maintaining and expanding the flourishing IVD segment of Trivitron Healthcare. He has also demonstrated a strong commitment to ensuring that the highest standards of corporate governance, safety, ethics and compliance are maintained.

Rajesh is a particularly avid advocate of developing localized strategies to overcome existing competition.

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Antigen tests may be more practical to use for large number of people

thus, it becomes imperative for laboratories and hospitals to ensure that all symptomatic negative patients be referred to a real-time RTPCR test for COVID-19.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has validated and approved Trivitron Healthcare’s flagship COVID-19 Rapid Testing Antigen Kit – Biocard Pro COVID-19 Rapid Antigen – and recommends the test as a point-of-care diagnostic assay for testing, in combination with the gold standard RTPCR test. These kits claim to provide accurate results in 7 to 10 minutes.

Biocard Pro COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Biocardpro COVID-19 Antigen kit is a chromatographic immunoassay for the qualitative detection of COVID-19 specific antigen. With the help of a nasal sample, it collects fluid samples, and produces results in minutes. Biocard Pro COVID-19 Rapid Antigen provides test results rapidly, at costeffective rates, and can be more amenable to

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point-of-care use, and therefore more suitable for testing in community and remote regions.

As these tests are faster and less expensive than other popularly known PCR tests, Antigen tests may be more practical to use for large number of people.

The Biocardpro COVID-19 Antigen kit is one of the few rapid antigen kits to yield satisfactory results, manufactured at Trivitron’s Chennai manufacturing facility at the rate of around 4.5-5 million tests per month. The company plans to distribute these kits to various government entities and private laboratories through various marketing channels.

As India touches the 7.2 million mark for Covid-19 caseloads, arresting the surge in case numbers and access to COVID-19 testing still remains a huge challenge. In our effort to increase the rapid outreach of point-of-care diagnostic testing, Antigen tests will remain as one of the most important tools that saves valuable time, cost and lives.

!ncredible

No matter where you decide to go in India, you’ll find something incredible. And right next to that, you’ll find us. Safe and sanitised stays, waiting to host you.

So pack up your bags, dust those boots, come to an OYO near you.

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COMPANY SPOTLIGHT

CURIA APP

THROUGH THE CANCER JOURNEY

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r. Gunjan Bhardwaj is the Founder & CEO of Innoplexus AG, a pioneer in using artificial intelligence and blockchain for drug discovery and development. When his best friend and mentor was diagnosed with cancer, Dr. Gunjan started searching for answers to questions like what other treatments are available, what clinical trials could be suitable, who are the top experts for the cancer stage, and type and stage.

Nothing seemed appropriate to the queries he had, and he realized that this is the experience of millions of people around the globe. After they founded Innoplex together, an AI company that drives drug discovery

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with pharmaceuticals and biotechnological companies, they created CURIA, an app to bring the technology to cancer patients and help them navigate their journey to recovery, giving them access to information about treatments, clinical trials, and cancer experts.

For tailored answers to the most pressing questions for cancer patients, CURIA uses AI with 34 patents and 100+ patent applications to scan terabytes of data daily, organize it and extract cancer treatments, clinical trials, and experts. Together with a team of medical experts, this data is then curated into an app to empower patients to make the decisions that will impact their cancer journey. “With CURIA, we’re constantly posting campaigns

Dr Gunjan Bhardwaj, Founder & CEO, Innoplexus AG

CURIA BRINGS TECHNOLOGY TO PATIENTS TO HELP THEM NAVIGATE THEIR CANCER JOURNEY

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and blogs to help patients understand that they have the right to understand what’s happening to them, to ask every question they have, and keep pushing until they feel satisfied with the path their treatment journey is taking,” says Dr Gunjan.

Bespoke answers for each patient CURIA brings technology to patients to help them navigate their cancer journey, giving them access to information about treatments, clinical trials, and cancer experts. “The team we have is based across Germany, the US, and India and is an inspirational group of passionate advocates for patient wellbeing who have brought the app to what it is today. We have medical experts with over 60 years experience in Oncology, alongside data scientists who build and optimize our artificial intelligence and help extract the content for the app,” Dr Gunjan mentions.

Patients in the app are given a questionnaire about their cancer type, stage, and demographics and then receive information about treatments, clinical trials, and experts tailored to this profile. With this data, CURIA comes up with information that is unique to each patient.

This empowers them through their cancer journey and enables them to have more productive discussions with their doctor and make important decisions that affect their treatment.

Disseminating reliability With more people seeing the inside of a hospital more often than before, the pandemic has created an unprecedented interest amongst the public in disease progression, management, and drug discovery. Now, people want to know more about their health status and manage their own wellbeing and have a say in how they avail themselves of treatment. Thus, information needs to be constantly supplied to increase reliability. This highlights the importance of trustworthy and audited information about healthcare. “The pandemic has shown possibilities for how the healthcare sector can collaborate to bring the best for patients and the public. We’ve seen more industry players working together, with each other and with government or other public organizations. This collaboration in the interest of bringing therapies to patients faster is a huge positive which I deeply hope will remain after the pandemic,” says Dr Gunjan.

International expertise After starting his education in Rajasthan, Dr Gunjan finished his undergraduate degree at IIT Bombay. During his time there, he realized that anything is possible by being inspired by people around him who took industry-defining

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career paths. He later moved to Germany on an Academic Exchange Service to study at Pforzheim University, where he had the opportunity to begin his career as a consultant.

He interned at EY in Tax Advisory Services, where he met his mentor and friend, who brought him to the idea of Innoplexus.

CURIA was started to rise to the challenge of healthcare with optimism, a world-class team of experts, and determination to bring the best outcomes for patients.

Dr Gunjan started his entrepreneurial career at the age of 18 when he decided to sell bean bags with a friend in Mumbai. “I learned that the key to entrepreneurship is in doing. There’s a lot of thinking, learning, and reading, but the core for me just tried it out, and if you fail, you fail, and you try again,” says Dr Gunjan. Through his firsthand experience, he realized how to build Innoplexus and CURIA, taking account of the gaps in healthcare and develop a solution. This helped him to be relentless in his pursuit to build a business that creates a real impact. “I am a hopeless optimist and believe that everything is worth a try; if you believe it can change the future for the better.

Obstacles will always be in your way, and no human being can tackle all of them, but by staying positive and thinking smart, they won’t matter in the long run,” Dr Gunjan says.

The road ahead For an app that was launched just a year ago, CURIA prides itself on the impact they have made with patients.

By building Innoplexus to advance drug discovery, 14 discovery programmes were completed with clients that yielded massive benefits in treatment in disease areas like antimicrobial resistance, COVID-19, non-small cell lung cancer, and myocardial infarction, to name a few.

In addition to this, CURIA brought vital technology into the hands of over 160,000 patients who benefit from the app across the globe and helps them through their cancer treatment.

CURIA continues to grow by expanding to more countries and building a bigger ecosystem called OncoCoin that will open new possibilities for patients in the app. Especially in India, CURIA aims to offer second opinion services to patients, a vital part of a cancer journey that usually isn’t easy, and internationally, is often almost impossible. “Through CURIA, patients will be able to purchase a second opinion from a leading oncologist on our panel, helping them to decide which treatment path is right for them,” says Dr Gunjan. The team at CURIA continues to innovate in ways that will bring more resources and possibilities to patients, support them in advocating for their health, and building the best treatment journey for them.

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Higher Education Digest July 2020

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LEADER’S

INSIGHT

Innovations and Trends in Healthcare Infrastructure Ravideep Singh, Associate Director, Creative Designer Architects

How is behavioural health impacting healthcare design?

Today, designing for Behavioural Health is no longer confined to facilities catering to patients with mental health disorders alone. As we become more culturally liberal and let go of the social stigmas associated with mental health, there is a growing awareness, acknowledgement and acceptance of behavioural health disorders as normal, treatable conditions. Healthcare planners have also started to adopt planning strategies and design elements that are particularly effective in responding to patients with even some degree of behavioural health disorder. Consequently, we have witnessed a rational shift in healthcare design wherein we emphasise how design strategies and elements work and interact with the users rather than only how they appear.

Moreover, the World Health Organization’s data suggests that one in every five individuals in India suffers from some sort of mental health disorder. Evidence also shows that patients in clinical settings have increased susceptibility to mental health disorders, due to increased stress induced in the clinical setting.

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Ravideep Singh is the Associate Director at Creative Designer Architects, a New Delhi-based architecture firm that has helmed notable projects of diverse typologies across Asia. An alumnus of the University of Illinois U.C, School of Architecture, he has earned a specialization in ‘Healthcare Planning’ from Cornell University, NY. With a penchant for designing spaces that foster health and wellness, Singh has over four years of experience in healthcare design in India and the United States, working with internationally renowned practices like HDR, HKS, and RSP Architects. At CDA, he has conceptualized several awardwinning projects including AIIMS Guwahati, Pragma Medical Institute at Bathinda amongst others.

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Healthcare architects and designers have now begun to acknowledge behavioural health as a crucial component of one’s overall health. Hence, the planning of hospitals is seamlessly driven by a ‘patient and care-giver’ centric approach which attempts to reduce stress by designing departments, waiting areas that offer a certain degree of flexibility for privacy and interaction, ergonomic variability and acoustic comfort. Positive distractions through abundant natural light, art and biophilia are also being considered to improve patient health. Architects and designers are also creating family areas wherever possible to keep loved ones close to the patients.

What are the innovations you have integrated into your designs in recent years?

Healthcare design, in general, is highly susceptible to modifications and paradigm shifts. Once conceived as a complex whole of medical departments, healthcare design today thrives as a domain with an enormous potential to innovate, hypothesize and experiment – all to tackle some pressing issues for the healthcare industry worldwide. Some of these include rising costs, massive capital investments, healthcare consumerism and most

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recently, the need for flexibility and resilience for unprecedented outbreaks and epidemics.

At CDA, we strongly believe in the altruistic potential of design and acknowledge its impact on its users, especially the patients. Consequently, planning at CDA is driven by a patient-centric approach and governed by evidence-based design strategies for better outcomes pertaining to areas such as patient safety, patient experience, recovery rates, staff satisfaction, medical error reduction etc.

More recently, we have also been responsive in terms of building resilience in hospital designs. The resilient designs will allow hospitals to factor for the influx in the number of beds based on need and even let the departments grow in size based on pre-planned scenarios.

What are the factors you consider to elevate patient experience?

With several Evidence-based studies available to suggest positive impacts on patients as a result of enhanced patient experience, a patient-centric approach is what drives healthcare design at CDA. The most appropriate way to elevate patient experience lies in neuroscience,

where it is imperative to understand a patient’s state of in departments so that they can be seamlessly elaborated mind, which is generally susceptible to high degrees or repurposed based on demand. of stress-induced due to factors like the anxiety of Further, post-covid, there is a need to meticulously treatment, invasion of privacy, separation from loved plan for isolation and infection control through strategies ones, poor acoustics, etc. We strive to mitigate these by such as creating a forward triage along with a scenariointroducing positive distractions such as — scenic views based segregation of infectious and non-infectious zones to outside, abundant daylighting, specific colours and within the facility. Pre-planning these zones will allow biophilic-themed artwork, and access to safe courtyards for easy implementation and execution of workflows in and nature-centric outdoor spaces. Most importantly, any scenario, thereby equipping the hospital to adapt and flexibility and choice help patients respond promptly and effectively. gain a certain degree of control over Additionally, it is vital to select what is assumed to be taken away the correct type of mechanical for patients in a hospital. Small equipment and air filtration design interventions such as public systems used in the infectious and and private waiting areas, flexibility non-infectious areas to prevent to sit on high or lounge seating etc., the spread of viral infections.

Designing for have shown to elevate the patient Behavioural experience positively.

What is the future of healthcare in terms of Health is no How has your journey been infrastructure? longer confined in healthcare infrastructure?

The future of healthcare, Where did you start, and how is like most other industries, is to facilities it going now? digital. Healthcare futurists and catering to The journey in healthcare design has researchers are now focused on been that of a purposeful continuation orienting the healthcare system patients with of CDA’s two-decade-long quest towards a physically disintegrated mental health in understanding and innovating and digitally seamless care healthcare design in India. Initiated delivery model. The future disorders alone

by Maninder Kaur and Mohanbir of healthcare will collaborate Singh in 2001 – CDA’s healthcare with IoT, make the best use of expertise and the portfolio have rapidly changing technology, and constantly grown multi-fold, getting manifest into an efficient model to grips with newer challenges, that is less susceptible to untimely typologies, geographies and scales. Delving into every collapse, claim researchers. Employing tools like Big healthcare project is consciously rewarding with always Data and Artificial Intelligence will allow healthcare an opportunity to make healthcare more accessible, professionals and designers to comprehend patterns out equitable and fun for its end users. of the already existing profiles of patients and put them to use for creating dynamic design layouts for hospitals How do you prepare hospitals for surges that are reconfigurable. With the help of technology and in cases, especially during this COVID-19 the growing acceptance of digital interactions, patients’ pandemic? health will soon be monitored by smart infrastructure While hospitals across the country crumbled under the remotely by doctors and nurses. pressure of the first two waves of the pandemic, the Significant strides in the research and development of interventions of healthcare architects and designers are these schemes are underway, and the future is promising. crucial to curate resilient hospitals of the future. At CDA, The involvement of tech giants is also anticipated in the we believe that a few fundamental changes in our approach years to come. With a commitment to improving the to healthcare design would allow healthcare facilities to healthcare scenario in India, we at CDA are optimistic better factor for surge while taking the healing potential that with architects working in partnership with doctors, of the hospitals notches up. Essentially, what we’ve researchers and tech giants, an evolved healthcare begun to do is to plan for flexibility and reconfiguration ecosystem awaits.

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EXPERT

OPINION

Impact of the COVID-19 Second Wave on the Indian Healthcare System Vishal Jain, Director, Inspira

Why Indian Healthcare system had to face this crisis during the second wave?

Indian healthcare system faced an unprecedented crisis as the second wave of COVID-19 hit the nation. The first wave in 2020 mostly hit metropolitan cities of the country, but the second wave in 2021 infected larger number of people in rural areas as well. As a result, hospitals both govt & private in urban and rural areas, had to battle lakhs of cases, which they were not prepared for. Hospitals were struggling trying to make the most out of limited resources, but the harsh truth is that there were countless deaths caused due to delayed medical attention and shortage of resources like oxygen cylinders, medicines, test kits and even beds. Now as the cases have gone down, the situation is much controlled, however it is natural to fear what will happen if and when the third wave of COVID-19 hits the nation?

Indian healthcare must undergo a tectonic shift towards digitization, a decision that was on the cards for years. Yet, a complete reimagination of

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Vishal Jain brings experience and expertise of more than a decade to Inspira Enterprise and is responsible for strategic initiatives to expand the business in South East Asia, Government and Healthcare sector. Vishal’s keen eye to evaluate an enterprise or a government opportunity has helped him and Inspira Enterprise gain momentum.

He has handled multiple large deals in the IT, e-governance and Banking sectors. At Inspira Enterprise, he is responsible for driving large strategic business deals and generating new business avenues. He is also passionate in nurturing long-term relationships and this holds a pivotal role in developing government and enterprise segment relationships.

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the healthcare system towards the digital age remained an elusive long-term goal, even though time and again it has been proven that technology can save lives. India’s total healthcare spending (out-of-pocket and public) is at 3.6% of GDP, which is way lower than other countries. During crisis situations like the COVID outbreak, technology can bridge the gap fast by making healthcare accessible and affordable to people across the country. Basic tech solutions like Hospital Information Management System (HIMS), EMR (Electronic Medical Record), Telemedicine and Analytics for Population health apps can help in turning the situation in time.

In what way could digitization and data analytics have helped the Indian healthcare system during such time?

While Electronic Health Records (EHR) is a prevalent practice in western countries, India is still in the nascent stage of digitizing patient records and lacks regulatory bodies with Govt (Regulators) guidelines for the adoption of EMR\EHR. Collecting large volumes of data and implementing big data analytics with a little blend of AIML based predictive model can be a game changer in the Healthcare System. Big data analytics can examine large, unstructured data sets to uncover patient patterns and present data in the most efficient and effective way to ensure findings that can drive strategy and decisionmaking. Already, computer algorithms can interpret a range of digital images more accurately than clinicians.

When applied in the healthcare industry, big data uses the required health data of demography or individuals to help make informed decisions in preventing epidemics, curing diseases, reducing health-related expenses, and mitigating healthcare crises in the future.

With Hospital Information Management System (HIMS) to record, accurate and meaningful data can be collected based on preventive initiatives and even provide real-time analytics for future references. The right data on a disease can be analysed based on morbidity, post recovery symptoms, population mobility, etc. Data about people being resilient to the virus can also prove to be beneficial in the future to curb such healthcare scares.

Genomic data studies in recent time for identifying the strains variants, and clinical studies on drugs and vaccine, has created a huge demand within India for Big data analysis.

Elaborate on Inspira’s work done for this sector?

As India’s leading digital transformation solution provider across all the domains like Healthcare, Banking,

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Defence, Oil & Gas, Smart City and Cyber Security. we have focused on building enterprise technology for hospitals and community health centers that will enable them to enhance patient care, while keeping cost under control. We have deep expertise in HIMS developing Smart/Innovative Solutions, EMR/EHRs, Telemedicine, Next Generation/Mobile Apps, Population Health Management and Patient Portals impacting patient safety and quality of healthcare delivery. These solutions are inter-operable and compliant with international

With HIMS to record, accurate and meaningful data can be collected based on preventive initiatives and even provide real-time analytics for future references

Health standards. Inspira has served the needs of nearly 1000 Healthcare providers not just in India, but across Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific. The customers of Inspira today include Enterprise Hospitals, Government Hospitals, Municipal Corporations, Smart Cities, Health Insurers and PSUs among a plethora of other healthcare entities.

What role has tele-consulting solution played during the Covid-19 crisis?

Telemedicine has been instrumental in connecting patients with doctors over digital platforms, which ensures social distancing norms. This reduces the burden on patients to go to doctors for routine check-ups, as they can also be done online. It also helps hospitals from being crowded and helps with better resource management. Telemedicine connects care providers and patients virtually while collecting and integrating all the critical clinical patient information. The solution uses this data to provide real-time data analytics of patient, medication and vaccination, which helps the healthcare facility to predict and plan for an efficient healthcare delivery. Telehealth services are scaling rapidly with more Healthcare providers and governments relying on remote consultation to combat Covid.

How may this trend of technology adoption in healthcare impact the year ahead?

Despite numerous challenges, examples of progress in health care digital transformation are proliferating and should continue to do so in 2021 and beyond. Australia’s first fully integrated digital hospital, St Stephen’s Private Hospital in Hervey Bay, is described as “the Australian benchmark in automated patient care.” Patient health records and results are updated and accessible on tablets and mobile devices throughout the hospital, personalized food and medication can be managed electronically, and practitioners can log in at any time to see what a patient is doing in real time. Health systems in Canada are making significant investments in the next wave of EHR, which offer an improved data value proposition and support better clinical and financial outcomes.

Our nation’s healthcare system needs to be proactive and preventive rather than acute and reactive. Embracing new technologies can take giant strides towards a digital future. The country needs a system where every patient has their digital records, which includes demographics, medical history, allergies, laboratory test results, etc.

These records can be shared via secure information systems and available for providers from both the public and private sectors. This unified healthcare database will help the Indian health system making records accessible in times of crisis. Now, is also an appropriate time to build public-private partnership (PPP) projects involving technology companies working in the healthcare space for faster and scalable digital healthcare initiatives. Joint efforts from all stakeholders can help tide over this storm and build a future ready healthcare sector for India.

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COMPANY SPOTLIGHT

FEDO

INTEGRATING DEEP TECH TO PREDICT HEALTH RISKS

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he advent of technologies like AI/ML has proved to be a boon for mankind. Prediction of future diseases through data analysis has created a massive revolution in the healthcare sector. Early detection of diseases will result in creating awareness about the disease, early treatment, fewer complications, and better prognosis. Deadly diseases like cancer, cardiac diseases, kidney failure, etc., can be detected early and can save people’s lives with early treatment/ intervention and rehabilitation sessions.

Along with decreasing the healthcare cost, it will also increase the lifespan of an

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individual. The morbidity and mortality rate will be decreased. “A healthy individual means a healthy and happy family. A healthy family means a developed country. We, at Fedo, generate a quantitative health score called the Fedo Score, which gives an idea of a patient’s health status and predicts adverse risk for certain diseases,” says Prasanth Madavana, CEO and Co-founder, FEDO. FEDO.ai is one of a kind health-tech startup that leverages AI/ML to predict the health risk of an individual. Their key USP is the FEDO Score – a credit score for health, which gives a complete quantitative value to an individual’s health backed by

Prasanth Madavana, CEO & Co-founder, FEDO

FEDO’S ALGORITHM IS DESIGNED TO PREDICT DISEASES RISKS AT A WARNING/ DIRECTIONAL LEVEL AND NOT CLINICAL

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research. A holistic indicator of the future health risks of an individual, it aids indicate their likelihood of getting diabetes and other lifestyle-based diseases. Built by medical professionals and data scientists using 250+ medical studies, 5000+ plus quality controlled and academic and research documents from all over the world and analyzing over 100 Million global health records and 1.5 million claims data, the FEDO score ranges from 0 to 1000. “In our observation, any individual with a score above 600 can be considered a healthy, low-risk person, and anyone scoring less than 400 can be considered highrisk. Anything between 400 and 600 can be considered a moderate risk,” states Prasanth.

FEDO’s algorithm is designed to predict diseases risks at a warning/directional level and not clinical.

Their idea is to funnel the riskiest people to the medical experts so that interventions can be done early. Currently, FEDO is working to predict six chronic lifestyle diseases

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like Diabetes, Chronic Kidney diseases, Chronic Heart diseases, Hypertension, Chronic Vascular diseases, and Obesity. “We are working to incorporate more diseases like liver diseases, cancer, etc., into our system in near future. The accuracy of this prediction model is around 75-80%. With more data available, the accuracy and precision of the model will increase with time”, opines Prasanth.

Helping Detect Health Risks Easily As per the United Nations, non-communicable diseases could cost the global economy $47 Trillion by 2030.

Hence, with a mission to enhance the delivery of health care and reduce out-of-pocket expenses for every human being on the planet, FEDO has created its proprietary tool – FEDO Score. FEDO score, an indicator of your health – comparable, accessible, and usable by all the stakeholders to better understand their or their customer’s

THE PANDEMIC HAS GENERATED AWARENESS AMONGINDIVIDUALS TO ADOPT A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE

health. Thus, FEDO lends a hand to health and wellness providers in identifying the target customer groups.

Since the efficiency and outcome of the tool depend on data, collecting substantial data to make any meaningful predictions was the major challenge for FEDO as they started their journey. “Most of the available data was in raw form and needed substantial cleaning. We spent over a year collecting and cleaning up data and making it useful. Now we can proudly say we have the cleanest and the most comprehensive lifestyle health database for India”, explains Prasanth.

A combination of medical professionals, data scientists, and engineers, the team at FEDO is supported and mentored by industry veterans from the insurance and medical fields. A management professional, Prasanth has 2 decades of innovation and change management experience in Asia, Europe, and North America. Arun, Co-founder of FEDO, is a healthcare analytics expert with 2 decades of global experience in health insurance, claims processing, enrolment, and products. Ashish

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Mehrotra, the ex-CEO of Max Bupa, is an investor and advisor at FEDO. Together, they are growing and scaling new heights.

Tackling obstacles like a pro, the first hurdle Prasanth came with was the no availability of data. They spent more than a year collecting and clean the database without looking for either a fundraise or new customers.

The second was getting this idea and score accepted by people. The team at Fedo has done multiple pilots, proof of concepts, and explanations till they got their first client. “We passionately believe in the Fedo Score and want the industry to leverage it to enhance the delivery of health care and reduce out-of-pocket expenses for every human being on the planet”, adds Prasanth.

Being a small company that was recently started, Fedo considers every small win as a major milestone in their journey. The day they landed their first customer to the day they got selected by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government among the deep tech companies. “I consider the day when we registered our company was one of the key milestones in our journey. However, the day when we accurately predicted that the head of a well-known insurance company was prediabetic and he got diagnosed with the same the very next day by his doctor, further boosted our confidence on what we were out to achieve”, recalls Prasanth.

Bring the ‘Tech’ in HealthTech The telemedicine, teleconsultation, and remote doctor consultation industry have surged massively since the pandemic. All thanks to digital India and recent technology, the market expected to reach people can

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now avail all kinds of medical advice, medicines, and consultations right from their homes through their smartphones. With the market size of telemedicine expected to increase to USD 5.5 billion by 2025, the current pandemic has generated awareness among individuals to adopt a healthy lifestyle. They are keener to invest in health and life insurance. Being a health-tech company that has taken this pandemic as a challenge to work for the Community, FEDO utilized technologies like AI/ML to create a model to predict the possible risk associated with COVID-19 by analyzing the health conditions of individuals. They have also developed a video-based vital signs monitoring algorithm so that people can assess their health risks without going out of their homes.

The COVID-19 pandemic has already shown the way for the future of healthcare. Remote health checkups through video conferencing have been on the rise.

The health status of a person can be detected through image or video analysis. All the vital signs can be detected through certain attributes present on the face.

For example – the pulse rate, blood pressure, stress, and SPO2 can be detected through blood flow on the face. Hence, a physician can easily get an insight into the overall health status of an individual through these models. The appointment scheduling and lab tests operational efficiency can be increased, and there will be better accuracy of regular health checkups. “We are now partnering with a healthcare company in the USA to improve the efficiency of healthcare delivery, and with a global leader in life Insurance based out of North America for their global operations,” concludes Prasanth.

Want to find Investor for your Startup?

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EXPERT

OPINION

How has Medical Technology benefited the Public Satish Kannan, Co-founder & CEO, MediBuddy

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edical technology fueled by technological developments has been transforming and reimaging the medical ecosystem, progressing it to new heights. Timely innovations have enabled people to get access to better quality healthcare amenities and have aided in improving health and quality of life.

Pushing boundaries of traditional healthcare parameters has opened doors for new opportunities. It has made advancements in medical systems that have helped cure illnesses, monitor vitals remotely, facilitate better patient records, consult doctors virtually and so much more. It has expedited processes and has overall had a positive impact on numerous healthcare practices.

Telemedicine Telemedicine has helped the medical industry reach new horizons. It has allowed healthcare professionals remote delivery of healthcare services. It has also enabled them to proceed with consultations,

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Satish Kannan is a pioneer in the online healthcare industry.

With a singular focus to bring a paradigm shift in the healthcare industry, he has, in a relatively short period of time, ushered his organization to a leadership position. He is well on his way to achieving his goal of making high-quality healthcare accessible to everyone across the nation. Satish Kannan or SK as he is popularly known is an alumnus of IIT Madras B.Tech & M.Tech in Electrical engineering. After completing his education, SK started his career with Philips Healthcare, being involved with Research and Development on specialized devices, used by cardiologists for conducting surgeries.

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diagnosis, and treatment virtually, without the need for an in-person visit. Patients can easily connect with certified specialist doctors via designated telemedicine platforms for their concerned problems and can receive medical guidance in real-time. This has empowered people residing in remote areas, where the availability of quality healthcare services is scarce. It has created an offset system that has the potential to bridge the disparity in the availability of medical amenities that has existed for ages.

Even today in remote and underdeveloped parts of the country, the availability of basic medical infrastructure and amenities is absent. Due to this, they are often forced to travel to distant places for medical help. However, with telemedicine people can access doctor consultations and other healthcare services.

It is also a much more cost-efficient option for patients as they are only required to pay the basic consultation fee. It also helps save time, which is why it is increasingly becoming a popular option amongst the urban population. Given the hectic lifestyles they lead, making time to visit a doctor can be challenging for people. To add to it, the city traffic and the long waiting period can be very overwhelming. Hence, via telehealth portals, individuals can conveniently make appointments to their liking and can consult with medical specialists without even stepping out.

Electronic Medical Records We are slowly morphing into a digital world, where we can nearly get access to all possible things digitally and conveniently. Thanks to technological advancements, patient records and treatment of history are also going digital. This eliminates the whole process of finding the physical file, which also has a high risk of getting misplaced or damaged.

With digital records, you can easily feed in the patient history in the system and can access records hassle-free anytime.

This seamless integration of technology does not only make the process convenient for both doctors and patients, but it also results in better care for patients and enhances the overall experience.

Leveraging VR & AR in Training In the past few years, several mediums of eLearning have been used to impart information and educate medical students. One of which is noteworthy has

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been the inclusion of virtual reality and augmented reality. Through virtual reality, practitioners can experience real-life scenarios via stimulated counterparts to gain practical knowledge.

VR-based learnings help doctors comprehend the better understanding of anatomical positioning.

It gives them a comprehensive perspective of the interior functioning of the human anatomy. It also allows them to consider different scenarios and possibilities that could arise in complex surgery.

VR and AR embedded learning prepare doctors better, is cost-effective, and significantly reduces anxiety. It is a safer option for learning. With the pandemic, it has ensured that learning continues without any major hurdles.

Remote Monitoring With the advancement in medical technology, new devices have been developed that enable healthcare professionals to monitor the patients’ vitals without admitting them to the hospital. For patients with chronic conditions, disabilities, mobility impairments, etc. frequent visits to the hospital can be extremely time-consuming and laborious.

Through monitoring devices, patients can significantly reduce the number of visits made to the hospital and also the need for hospitalization.

There is more transparency between the patient and physician about the concerned patient’s health.

It aids the doctor in monitoring a patient’s health remotely and also makes home care more viable and efficient.

AI predicting outbreaks & detecting underlying diseases Artificial Intelligence with deep learning, large data analysis, and algorithms has the potential to predict the next outbreak or epidemic. They can gather and analyze large quantities of data about public health such as underlying diseases, symptoms, regions affected, people at risk, etc. It can also predict the speed of viruses spreading, symptoms evolving, geographical regions, and the severity of outbreaks.

AI in analyzing an individual patient’s medical history, drugs administered, symptoms, course of treatment, body reaction, etc. also helps recommend the most suitable course of treatment for the patient. It can also detect diseases in undiagnosed patients with common as well as rare and complex diseases. This has been an extremely effective tool

in identifying diseases in the preliminary stages and ensuring that the patient receives timely treatment.

3D printing 3D printing technology helps create a threedimensional solid object by adding layers from a digital file. This technology has enabled to manufacture of an array of medical equipment in a cost-effective and faster way. More customizable and flexible devices can be manufactured, which has enabled building prosthetics for patients more conveniently. With taking the patient’s measurements and sourcing the material required, the printer can print out prosthetic devices made custom fit for the patient. What would have taken weeks together to produce one model, can now be easily produced in a couple of hours/days.

Apart from prosthetics, customizable dental implants, surgical equipment, human organs; -tissues can be produced using 3D printing technology. 3D printing using depositing living cells acquired from the patients themselves is used to mold organs and tissues in specific shapes. This also reduces the risk of the body rejecting the organ, as it is made from the patient’s cells itself.

3D printing technology has streamlined the manufacturing process in the healthcare industry. It has brought down costs and increased accessibility for all. It holds great potential in the medical sector that could further ease processes.

Health & Fitness Monitoring Gadgets Health and fitness monitoring devices are increasingly gaining more popularity amongst people. These gadgets allow individuals to monitor their basic health vitals such as their heart rate, oxygen, blood pressure, sugar level, etc. It also helps you track your daily step count, calories burnt, and sleeping pattern. These gadgets developed for personal use are an effective way for individuals to monitor their health and keep track of their fitness. Given the fact that most individuals lead a busy lifestyle, these devices precisely allow them to monitor your health with little effort.

To conclude, technology in the field of medicine has saved countless lives. With developments constantly underway, we can hope that it continues easing processes and improving healthcare for all individuals.

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LEADER’S INSIGHTS

The Distinct Feature of X-ray Technology in COVID-19 Diagnostics Navjot Singh, President – Medical Imaging, Trivitron Healthcare

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n December 2019, a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, caused infection to humans in Wuhan in the Hubei province of China. The infection caused respiratory distress and is highly contagious with evidence of spreading through air. The disease spread across continents and infection was reported from almost every country.

Imaging procedures are of great value in the COVID-19 pandemic when the question of assessment of suspected cases and determination of the course of the disease arises. While a multitude of radio diagnostic tools are employed the role of X-ray imaging in COVID-19 infection has a distinct importance.

Real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is the primary test for diagnosing SARS-CoV-2 infection, through running assay of throat swabs or sputum. However, since the virus’ incubation period can last up to 14 days, in the early stages, there might be a possibility of negative RT-PCR findings in the early stages of the infection. While at the onset

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Mr. Navjot Singh is the President of Medical Imaging Division of Trivitron Healthcare.

He has diverse experience in the healthcare segment across various business verticals.

With a proven track record of business expansion in new territories, he is a seasoned international business leader.

Expertise in building harmonised relationships coupled with an analytic mind. He is an experienced coach with a history of high-performing teams.

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of symptoms, computer tomography (CT) can confirm suspected cases and facilitate prognosis of severe cases.

CT has the capacity of capturing changes in the lungs of a COVID-19 patient at a high rate.

What can be the utility of X-ray imaging?

Analyzing chest X-ray findings revealed lower sensitivity for COVID-19-related lungs shadowing 25 to 69%. On the other hand, through X-Ray imaging the ability to identify the disease correctly-the specificity-was found to be up to 90%.

Imaging procedures are of great value in the COVID-19 pandemic

A significant factor in the dependability of X-ray findings could be the time elapsing between the appearance of initial symptoms and the imaging procedure. While no signs of the disease were yet noticeable in the X-ray within the initial three days after the beginning of coughing and fever, they were generally evident after 10 to 12 days.

An Italian study involving 72 symptomatic patients published in mid-April 2020 appears to affirm this time

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factor. At the time the imaging procedure was performed, all patients were at that point under home quarantine, and came to the hospital because of worsening of symptoms.

The sensitivity of the chest X-ray was reported to be 69 percent, based on the findings of the study.

Characteristic X-ray findings X-ray evaluation of the number of cases revealed the following characteristic X-ray findings.

• Most common changes in the lungs include: - consolidation, in other words, accumulations of fluid and/or tissue in pulmonary alveoli preventing gas exchange, - ground-glass opacity, and - nodular shadowing.

• The peripheral and lower areas of the lungs mainly gets affected.

X-ray imaging in existing circumstances Given the availability of limited information at present, medical societies and clinical experts are still trying to frame guidelines. As far as imaging is considered, CT findings are mostly considered. It has been established that chest X-rays are insensitive in the early stages of the disease. However, if quarantined patients with advanced symptoms are examined, X-ray imaging often reveals changes in the lungs.

Considerations while making use of X-ray technology Considering the contagious nature of the disease, contamination of the X-ray equipment and imaging machinery must be avoided. Being less complicated, X-ray systems are easier to be disinfected than CT equipment. In patients with advanced symptoms, images can be assessed in 2D for triaging COVID-19 patients.

This move would reduce the burden on CT imaging techniques. Also, X-ray imaging can be performed with the patient either standing or lying down, it could be used to examine them in bed in a room specifically assigned for that purpose.

Further to this, mobile X-ray units like Kiran’s Ultisys 3.5 has the additional advantage that it can be taken directly to the patient’s bedside. This rules out the chances of viral transmission while a patient is on way to the CT room. Additionally with the integration of Picture archiving and communication system (PACS) data can be economically stored for a longer duration of time and can be transferred across longer distances thus reducing human exposure.

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EXPERT

OPINION

How Digitisation can Make the

Healthcare Ecosystem Transparent and Hassle-Free Ashvini Danigond, Founder & CEO, Manorama Infosolutions Pvt Ltd

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he Covid-19 pandemic has been responsible for testing the ultimate limits of the healthcare system since last year. Against the backdrop of the second wave of the Covid-19 cases, if the present status of the healthcare system in the country is to be analysed, the relatively slow pace in adoption of digital technology, and resistance to share ownership data of patient treatment has created a lot of challenges at the district administration level. For instance, whether it comes to planning for Remdesivir stocks, vaccination drives, medical oxygen availability or ultimately bed management in a particular hospital, the spectre that confronts society is a grave one. In fact, the situation is such that there is no centralised repository available in India to understand the current status of the pandemic. In India, generally the data collected for patients is split between the government and private healthcare systems, this, too, is done partially.

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Ashvini Danigond, Founder and CEO of Manorama Infosolutions Pvt Ltd (MIPL), is a successful global entrepreneur and tech-innovator working on Innovations in healthcare information technology (IT). She has been conceptualizing, architecting and delivering world-class healthcare solutions for over 17 years. With Master ’s degrees in Healthcare, Computer Sciences and a degree in Law, this enables her in adopting a unique 360-degree command of Data Sciences covering Domain, Technology and Regulatory nuances.

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For that matter, consider another scenario, which pertains to mutation of the novel coronavirus. The current Covid-19 cases may be a mixture of various strains. After proper identification of the first lot of the novel coronavirus strain, a new double mutant strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been detected in India.

Similar strains have been detected in more than 17 other countries across the globe. However, the ground reality is that the healthcare community in India does not have any statistics available to plan their activities or devise any further course of action.

On the other hand, consider a situation which is related to the supply of coronavirus vaccine. At the end of February 2021, the demand for Covaxin was very low. Out of the seven companies permitted to manufacture this medicine in India, at least 6 lakh doses available with pharma companies were on the verge of expiry, so everyone was forced to cut down production. The demand, however, started to spike around mid-March 2021. Earlier, this medicine was administered at the later stage. but now doctors are almost treating it as the first line of treatment, especially in Maharashtra.

Companies have enhanced efforts for production, but the cycle to ramp up production to optimum capacity is 45 days. Maximum doses India can produce is around 42 lakh per month. Companies have been supplying available stock only to hospitals.

Hospitals have to upload patient details in every case.

This is to prevent black marketing. However, for pharma companies meeting the demand continues to remain a challenge.

Further, there is the exacerbation to the Covid-19 crisis in the form of shortage of medical oxygen in various states. Take, for instance, Maharashtra’s total production capacity is around 1,150-1,200 metric tons.

The State government has reserved 80 per cent of the supply for medical use. But as per the statement issued by the chief minister of Maharashtra, the medical use had already reached 700 metric tons, which now should be between 850-900 metric tons. So, now 100 per cent will be required to be reserved for medical use and have to think beyond it as well.

Need for Digitisation in Healthcare Sector Ever Than Before In the context of the above-mentioned critical scenarios in the healthcare sector, digitisation of the healthcare ecosystem and processes becomes imperative, if the situation has to be improved any time soon for all stakeholders in the long-run.

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All these years, the Indian healthcare market, propelled by challenges—mainly an ageing population, a shift in the disease burden, rural accessibility to healthcare, manpower shortage, low insurance penetration, inadequate public sector investment and inconsistent quality standards, has been in the need for major intervention. Today, this need for digital technology intervention is more than ever before as the nation continues to grapple with the global pandemic.

A case in point would be to showcase that across western nations, Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are a vital data resource for research uses. India, however, continues to be in the early stages of adoption of digitising patient records. While a few states have mandated the use of EHRs in public hospitals, besides, a few large and specialty hospitals have also adopted the use of EHRs, these records are generally to maintain summary records of patients to consider for billing purposes rather than for clinical purposes.

It has been observed that limited population health management (PHM) tools appear to be available with authorities. Population health management—working to improve the health outcomes of groups instead of individuals—makes financial sense when hospitals are paid capitated rates to care for populations or when it can be used to increase the volume of care delivered.

Similarly, access to health records of patients across multiple settings can be available through HEALTH INFORMATION EXCHANGES (HIE), which aggregate data in a particular region and make it available to healthcare providers through a single interface or Application Programming Interface (API).

HIE can enable providers to develop analytical insights to risk-profile their patient populations and intervene in a timely manner.

For companies engaged in healthcare in India, clinical data management continues to pose a significant challenge. Time and again, it has been pointed through various studies that such challenges prove to be hindrance in the care delivery to patients.

Moreover, physicians, including clinical staff tend to spend a considerable amount of time accessing and updating documents, resulting in more man-hours being spent at the job for documentation work leading to undue stress.

In India, big data and analytics are being leveraged to aggregate data to drive more tailored products and services. It has provided instruments for the accumulation, management, analysis, and assimilation of large volumes of diverse, structured, and unstructured data generated by the healthcare systems.

Big data holds the potential in addressing multitude of decisions on treatments and prevent citizens from being challenges, once patient health records are digitised, and exploited by some unscrupulous elements due to general longitudinal patient records are created and maintained. lack of awareness.

Healthcare Big Data Analytics (BDA) has a potential Through digital technology, there is ease in the to improve the quality of care and bring better efficiency patients’ transfer from one healthcare provider to another and delivery models by finding the associations from and also ensures transparency in the pricing of the massive volumes of healthcare data, thereby offering a services provided within the healthcare sector. wider perspective of clinical expertise based on medical Telemedicine and e-pharmacy, envisioned under the evidence and various tests. BDA mainly performs three National Digital Health Mission (NDHM), have already types of analytics: descriptive analytics, predictive gained traction during the ongoing pandemic, when analytics, and prescriptive analytics. The descriptive patients have limited access to the healthcare providers, analytics facilitates to explore especially in far-flung areas. insights and allows healthcare Steps have been initiated in the practitioners to understand what right direction with the Health Facility is happening in a given situation.

Registry (HFR), which will have a Predictive analytics involves various live and consolidated database of access to statistical techniques used to analyse healthcare resources and infrastructure and extract valuable insights from big within the country. This will also help health records data. On the other hand, prescriptive in policy planning to address the gaps of patients analytics is comparatively a modern in the system. Overall, it is hoped that type of analytics that combines disease burden assessment would be across descriptive and predictive analytics. made easy for the policymakers. The multiple This then when modeled using AI/ spread of non-communicable diseases ML tools can give us intelligent (NCD) can be easily monitored and settings can insights resulting in better clinical remedial measures can be given at the be available and operational outcomes. earlier stages rather than waiting for In order to enhance accuracy in the situation to reach a critical stage. through diagnosis, longitudinal clinical data The government using the HIE of people is extremely useful and available data can ensure the health can help analyze a whole variety policies are implemented based on of problems, involving symptoms, geographical, demographic and riskpharmaceuticals, and dosage. It factor-based monitoring of health. It would be much more difficult for reduces the expenses on healthcare for medical professionals to come to the right conclusions patients by minimising the need for repetition of tests and without this knowledge. other medical activities in case the healthcare provider Similarly, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine is changed. Further, duplicity of tests is avoided by Learning (ML) hold the potential in upping the ante in the bringing in testing standardisation and helping to analyse healthcare ecosystem. From identifying new molecules whether correct care is extended to a particular patient. to predicting adverse events, from forecasting across the In addition, providing unique identification to the doctors supply chain to predicting the next best action for the and health facilities can ensure quality and accountability healthcare staff to suggesting the best line of treatment, of the health services. the usage of AI in healthcare is quite diverse and deep.

Interoperability of the health data further In addition, Genetic and Deep learning techniques encourages free-entry and facilitates competition and along with advanced technology options like Quantum entrepreneurship among small and large players, both in computing, can open newer vistas in advanced healthcare. the private and public sectors. Further, it is imperative to incentivise healthcare providers for adoption of digital Summing It Up healthcare ecosystems as part of their delivery and In India, the adoption of digital technology to streamline care models. processes like medical record-keeping, sharing of All in all, digital evolution in healthcare is quite healthcare data, appointments and other healthcare necessary in making a critical difference. The right time processes would prove beneficial in making informed is, now.

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LEADER’S

INSIGHTS

Digital Health Solutions to become imperative in a Pandemic Affected World Amol R. Deshmukh, Founder, MedRabbits

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ver the last year, the Covid-19 pandemic has illustrated how much there is yet to be done in building solid health infrastructure. While we have fought valiantly against the virus, it was evident that we were not ready for the pandemic, and in many ways we still aren’t ready for the next one. One dominant trend that emerged over this trying time was the success of technology applications in providing widespread patient care, streamlining operations and keeping track of infection rates while following social distancing norms.

Technology and Covid-19 When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, it was all hands on deck. Most healthcare workers were forced to work extra shifts to cater to the massive influx of patients, and makeshift wards were set up to house them. In addition, with a view to providing committed care for Covid-19 patients while protecting other patients from infection, other lessessential medical services were either curtailed or put on hold. All of this served to stretch India’s healthcare system to breaking point while leaving open the question of how to continue providing quality medical services, Covid-19 or otherwise.

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Amol R Deshmukh is the Founder and CEO of MedRabbits. He is responsible for the overall management, strategy and innovation of the company. He started his first business at the age of 12, a book library. After trying his hand twice at the startup game, he recognized the importance of timing when it comes to product launch.

MedRabbits was incidentally launched a few months before the pandemic when the demand for at-home services surged. Amol is a proud Freemason and his lodge has helped build rural toilets, assist disaster-stricken areas and send underprivileged children to school.

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Enter healthtech, which has powered the postpandemic economy just as spectacularly as ecommerce and netbanking.. Apps like Aarogya Setu and CoWin enabled everyone to track health statuses, evaluate the safety of different places and get their vaccination appointments from home. Now, as the economy slowly opens up, social distancing and infection control continue to be priorities, which is where digital health can cover much of the gap. While face-to-face consultations cannot go away entirely, in my view, we are likely to see a hybrid healthcare delivery model where digital solutions are at the front and centre of operations. Patients and doctors too have adopted and accepted technology for delivery of healthcare services.

A third application is with regard to the diagnosis and treatment process itself. In this regard, it’s important to note that the use of AI and ML in a healthcare context is not new. Healthtech has been a growing segment in India for a while now, with a variety of apps scanning reports, matching patients with donors, delivering diagnoses based on blood reports or CT scans, connecting patients with clinics/laboratories and so on. As telemedicine continues to advance, consumer-facing apps can be equipped to do things like scan a patient’s eye or other body part right from home and store the data on the Cloud, for the physician to directly refer to as needed. This reduces the burden on medical manpower, who can be deployed to more critical/urgent cases, and also eliminates the possibility of human error. Moreover, the enhanced geographical coverage and time/cost savings involved are immense.

Rural health has traditionally suffered when it comes to last-mile delivery of services

The Benefits of Telehealth Doctors who are working day and night do not have the time to cater to daily requests or minor ailments in person.

Fortunately, with smartphones widely available, they don’t have to. Over the last year, consumers have increasingly taken to virtual consultations and ordering tests online, including home sample collections rather than going to a clinic. By taking the consultation process online, doctors can provide the necessary guidance through a simple chat, video or phone call, while devoting their in-person time to critical cases or medical research.

Telehealth, in fact, can enable a stronger connection between doctors and patients as repeat consultations or follow-ups become much more affordable and convenient.

Rural health has traditionally suffered when it comes to last-mile delivery of services, with limited clinics and testing centres catering to a vast number of patients.

Digital solutions can help by making the consultation process much more affordable and also by providing rural areas with go-to people if patients themselves aren’t comfortable using smartphones. Suitably trained digital healthcare assistants can input the patient’s details on a remote management software that lets doctors access them through the Cloud and provide a diagnosis and recommendations. Further, the assistants can coordinate with the testing centre to schedule appointments and manage payments, using the language that rural people are comfortable with. This way, patients can get the right medical services when they need them, without struggling to navigate the healthcare delivery system on their own.

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Looking ahead So what lies ahead for digital health solutions? The Government of India has set up a Health Cloud under its National Health Mission, with a view to collect electronic health records for every citizen. In my view, this will enable better decision-making for health policies and also provide the data pool required for AI to make better predictions about population health, which could significantly reduce treatment costs and improve health outcomes in the long run.

The objective is for healthcare to become predictive, rather than reactive, so that more and more diseases are prevented or even eradicated through the right treatment and screening options.

India has committed to the 2030 Sustainable Development goal of universal healthcare for its citizens, and digital health solutions are instrumental in accomplishing that. Consumers have demonstrated their readiness to shift to virtual options, a trend that will only spike upwards across industries and sectors, and healthcare is no different. And as digital penetration and fluency improves, rural consumers could be just as equipped to opt for telemedicine as their urban counterparts. It is my firm belief that in the near future, one out of every three health consultations will be virtual - excellent news for a world that must remain vigilant against future health threats while making the most of the accessibility and inclusivity that digital solutions offer.

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COMPANY SPOTLIGHT

PYRAMED INDIA

BREAKING NEW GROUND IN TELEMEDICINE

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mong the many challenges of the Indian healthcare system, the accessibility of healthcare and utilization of available healthcare facilities, especially in rural areas, continue to be the biggest concern. A report released by KPMG and the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) stated that nearly 75 percent of dispensaries, 60 percent of hospitals, and 80 percent of doctors are in urban areas serving only 28 percent of the Indian populace. “Most of us doctors are aware of the inequity in healthcare which is not just based on economic-ability but also logistics. 70% of the population

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of the country lives in locations that are far from specialized medical care. Due to the inaccessibility of specialty care, many patients in these rural areas have to resign themselves to their fate of being managed by health personnel with compromised capabilities,” comments Dr. Ketan Parikh, a senior pediatric surgeon and founder of PyraMed India.

The pandemic exacerbated the situation, as it had a significant but variable impact on different aspects of the healthcare industry, not just in treatment but in aspects like medical tourism, lifestyle modifications, and ancillaries related to non-emergency

Dr. Ketan Parikh, Senior Pediatric Surgeon & Founder, PyraMed India

MEDICAL SPECIALISTS IN NICHE AREAS OF THE FIELD HAVE SHARED THEIR RESOURCES WITH PYRAMED

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therapies. The need for intensivists and the entire support for intensive care rose exponentially. Many senior doctors avoided physical consultations leading to a spurt in online consultations.

“The covid pandemic and resultant lockdown significantly exaggerated and highlighted these inequities in healthcare. The timely intervention by the government of India to legitimize and promote telemedicine paved the way,” states Dr. Ketan.

Dr. Ketan Parikh is a pioneer who took complex pediatric and neonatal surgical procedures into the easily accessible environment of smaller surgical centers and is a passionate proponent of healthcare reforms directed toward patient safety and protocolbased practices. Dr. Ketan, along with Kartik Parikh, a technocrat and an entrepreneur, founded Pyramed India to take a vital step in ensuring quality healthcare across Indian geography. Dr. Ketan says, “We empower the primary doctors with quality specialist medical consultations especially needed for the non-urban population of the country.”

Pyramed India believes in the pyramidal system of medicine wherein the primary doctor(D1) of any patient is at the core of the financial journey of every patient. “The D1 is best aware of the ideal need to consult a specialist and the type of specialist that the patient needs to consult,” shares Dr. Ketan. Over the years, many specialists in the medical field have been concentrating on very niche areas of the field, thus improving their skills significantly in these fields. Dr. Ketan adds, “Regular CMEs and other academic events enable D1s to be abreast of these developments. The D1s are also aware of the past medical history of the patient and will also need to integrate the specialist advice with future health events of the patient.”

Discerning what healthcare needs Pyramed aims to provide a large range of these complex specialty opinions on its platform. “As a pilot, we are offering 15 stand-alone pediatric superspecialties, including pediatric surgery, orthopedic, ophthalmology, neurology, endocrinology, cardiology, and almost 9 pediatric multi-specialty clinic connections,” shares Dr. Ketan. With a Joint Video Consultation Platform for doctors and a unique pyramidal structure of consulting, Pyramed aims to reach over 50 lakh patients over the next 5 years. Through this initiative, PyraMed India gives doctors the ability to provide quality medical

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ABOUT Dr Ketan Parikh

Dr. Ketan has come a long way and has gained insight and experience in the medical field. Through his education and upbringing, many of his teachers and mentors have played a role in establishing what PyraMed India is today. Dr. Vasant Talwalkar, his mentor and chief in pediatric surgery, was dedicated to the deprived sections of society - economically and developmentally, by being honest and using ‘out of the box’ solutions and giving care till the end of treatment.

Dr. Y K Amdekar, a senior pediatrician, and his teacher also played a role in Dr. Parikh’s life. His need for simplicity in medical thought processes and prescriptions, along with his rational approach to patients inspired Dr. Parikh to create a platform where doctors and patients have a better understanding of each other and pave the way to recovery.

opinions even in the remotest parts of India at an affordable price.

Specialists in the medical field who specifically concentrate on very niche areas of the field have shared their resources with PyraMed India to become what it is today. Backed by an in-house product management team and the professional software team that is supported by Ridlr and Ola, the organization continues to grow leaps and bounds and hoping to save Rs.1500 crores for rural patients in travel, loss of pay, and ancillary costs. In addition to this, the startup also has an operational manager and a tele-support team to smoothen the consultation process. Through the partnership with top doctors and hospitals, PyraMed India offers affordable specialist / super-specialist care to those who have the greatest need and the greatest difficulty in accessing these services.

PYRAMED ENVISIONS TO PROVIDE ACCESSIBLE EXPERT MEDICAL OPINION AND CASEBASED LEARNING TO AUGMENT THE SKILLS OF PRIMARY DOCTORS

Planning ahead PyraMed India envisions providing accessible expert medical opinion and case-based learning to augment the skills of primary doctors, ensuring that patients are safe and have a stable healthcare pyramid. To this effect, the team strives to be more efficient as online medical consultations have become increasingly popular today. Dr. Ketan believes that commitment to patient care and patient well-being is the best ‘karma’ which rewards professionally and economically. He says, “Communication and transparency of decisionmaking establish a dependable rapport with the patient. Updating skills - Communication, digital, networking, etc. - are as important as updating medical knowledge.”

Being committed to work and having a sense of duty to serve the nation are some of the core values at PyraMed India. Through Dr. Ketan’s guidance, being honest to cause through word and action has taken the company to a new level. With education as the basis for development, PyraMed India continues to smoothen out the consultation process by easing access to specialist opinions and enabling local doctors to make quick and timely decisions for their patients. “We want to contribute to make India a still better country to live in. We will strive to make Pyramed accessible to all the doctors and maybe in the future to health care workers to access authentic medical opinions at the most peripheral level,” concludes Dr. Ketan.

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LEADER’S

INSIGHTS

E-Pharmacies are the saving grace during the Pandemic B L Mittal, Founder & Executive Chairman, SastaSundar.com

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ith the advent of the Pandemic, if there’s something bankable and sustainable, it is the E-Pharmacy. Tracing back to its onset, at a global level, the need of the hour was a war-footed expansion of ‘Pharmacies’. This would not only make for easy accessibility of prescription drugs but also ensure timely intervention for those in dire need. Confronting the Covid-19 upsurge, Pharmaceutical companies accorded more priority in making the investigational drugs for COVID-19 treatment available on a broad scale. Manufacturing of these drugs at short notice was only one part of the problem. The other remaining was that of the last mile reach of these life savers – from the apothecary cabinet to the ailing.

The CTA was made possible with E-Pharmacies bridging the gap between the medicinal demand-supply forces and those who are suffering.

With the massive allocation of budget in the “Health and Wellbeing” sector, by the Government, the priority cascaded and reflected in the market behaviour as well. Not only from a consumer’s point of view, but also physicians, who started making the slow but steady shift to the virtual space; being backed by a robust growth in online purchase behaviour.

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Mr. Mittal, aged 51 years, is an FCA, FCS and FCM by education and has an experience of more than 20 years working as an entrepreneur and a social worker. His areas of work include digital platform of healthcare and financial services.

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The conditions were prime for the uptick and subsequent stabilization of the ‘E-Pharmacy’.

This was now here to stay.

E-Pharmacy- Global Benefaction During the lockdown, the digitalization of pharmacy, which was in limbo for quite some time, came as a welcoming change to the market dynamics. With limited physical infrastructure coupled with scalable technology, the time was ripe for the concept of sustainable Pharmacy.

Gaining rapid traction, e-pharmacies became the prevalent norm in a direly needing market.

Social distancing further relayed the necessity of an E-Pharmacy.

E-Pharmacy trends while Covid Catastrophe in India India being one of the most populous countries, addressing the demand for medicine was tough.

Even though during lockdown medicine stores were open, to physically get them one had to dive head first into the risky waters of exposing themselves to the Virus. With the inception of lockdown, both the Union and the state government classified E-Pharmacy to be under Essential services. Through Aarogya Setu, the promotion of e-pharmacies made this tool beneficial to the mass.

Challenges addressed by E-Pharmacy during the Covid Crisis • Easy Access - People could reach out to their daily dose of medicines at-home comfort and with “doorstep delivery” features, which is not less than a boon.

• Convenience - 24x7 ordering, online consulting, order management, contactless payments and robust governance/ grievance redressal turned out to be absolute game changers.

• Catering to rural demands - Many a time, people from the outskirts are unable to access the pharmacies or have to travel a lot to find one.

In such a scenario, there are a lot of E-pharmacy portals that reach out and promise services beyond demographic constraints. In the times of lockdown, this feature has helped numerous families to stay secured.

• Cost-effectiveness - Since the online portal does not require the mediator supply chains, the

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process is shorter and hence the intrusion of the trade associations is clipped. This results in cost reduction as well.

• Patient safety - As there is no outdoor exposure, especially during the pandemic, this acts as a huge safety measure working in favour of a patient or their families.

• Scalability - Due to the limited use of physical infrastructure, a single warehouse/ pharmacy stockyard can serve a vast catchment area. Thus effectively translating into economies of scale.

• No queues - Also because of the online format one does not have to wait in long queues to get their turn called. One just has to fill up the prescribed drugs in their order list or add to the cart and enter payment gateway mode and wait for on-time delivery. Mostly, these portals have an easy navigation layout that can be accessed by all. A bonus? Well, the time you save can be put to some rest.

• Hassle free experience – Being governed by standard shipping, cancellation and returns policies the end customer is assured of a standard buying experience that is not subject to vagaries of human behaviour.

• Easy Access to Immunity Products - The pandemic is significantly accelerating the demand for immunity boosting products and supplements along with the medicines. E-pharmacies have tapped into the pulse of their consumer-needs ensuring the easy access to a wide range of immunity products as well.

Moreover, e-pharmacies have been structured in a way that includes various self-checks and pre-set protocols to ensure transparency and genuineness. All orders for medicines are processed only upon the submission of a valid doctor’s prescription and any prohibited medicines/drugs are not even listed on the inventory. Further, the online platform only works as an order receipt and processing mechanism, and each order undergoes the process of crosschecked till the final shipping point. These technology-driven value additions result in the consumers accessing the medicines faster, easier, and in a more affordable manner. Therefore summing it up, the war against Covid wouldn’t be possible without the pillar of E-Pharmacies.

Indeed the e-pharmacy ecosystem is a saving grace during the Pandemic!

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EXPERT OPINION

Telemedicine Innovation: How it can Keep up with the Rural Health System and Keep People Alive at Lower Costs Dr. Malini Saba, Founder & Chairman, Saba Group & Anannke Foundation

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n the wake of the gradual shift of the pandemic from urban to rural India, Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi emphasised on the importance of expanding telemedicine to the rural and other inaccessible parts of the country, while appreciating the efforts and dedication of medical teams who are working in these underserved regions.

Telemedicine has been a part of the medical system for quite a few years now. However, never before, its vitality and importance has been brought to the forefront as the current pandemic. With more than 75% of the Indian population residing in the rural regions and more than 75% of doctors residing in urban regions, telemedicine might be a boon for many.

Can Telemedicine Bridge the Gap? India is one of the biggest players in the information and technology sector with a panache for highly qualified doctors making strides in the medical field. Telemedicine is the blend of the brilliance from

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Dr Malini Saba a self-made businesswoman and the founder & chairman of Saba Group & Anannke Foundation.

Dr Malini Saba is an advocate for marginalized & with an aim to help ‘one billion’ people she launched ‘Anannke Foundation’ to serve as the umbrella organization for all of her philanthropic efforts and activities, which supports education, health, art and culture, livelihood generation and human rights. Dr Malini Saba is also an ardent philanthropist, psychologist, single Mother, fitness enthusiast, author, passionate culinarian, human & social rights activist and a global advocate for women and girls.

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both ends and can be, without understating, one of the cheapest ways of imparting healthcare to the underserved regions.

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is one of the prime examples of the efficacy of telemedicine that enabled 22 super specialty hospitals to connect with 78 rural and remote hospitals across the country with the help of its geo-stationary satellites.

New and improved telemedicine applications are not only making medicine cost-efficient but also removing the language barriers that also prevent remote residents from availing the medical aid they deserve in other cities and towns.

Payment options are now becoming easier as digital wallets and payment platforms like PayTm and Google Pay respectively are joining the ranks of modes of transactions that are allowed for medical aid.

This can be an ideal model for many tier 2 and tier 3 cities but in rural areas, there needs to be an extra reinforcement when it comes to the payment factor.

Until digital awareness comes up in these areas, local NGOs can intervene and help cross the language and transaction barrier.

How Can Telemedicine Help Medical Infrastructure in Rural Areas?

In recent news, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) Lucknow and IITKanpur joined hands to boost the national medical infrastructure and it is no surprise that Telemedicine will be an integral part of the mission.

Some of the distinct advantages of telemedicine are as follows: Bridging the Access Problem: Telemedicine’s main idea is to curb the inaccessibility to medical facilities.

India is a vast country with a rich yet differing diversity.

Telemedicine helps overcome the vastness, allowing people to receive the right medical advice as well as their medication on time. In case of severe cases, they can regulate the situation till the patient has the means to visit an actual multi-specialty hospital for better care.

Electronic communication and the most recent robotic intervention will help a lot simplify telemedicine for many rural dwellers and healthcare providers.

Sensitivity to Cultural Aspects: Cultural norms often play an important role when people come in for check up or for medical concerns. Some of the most common routines might feel like a blatant disrespect of their cultural, social or religious sentiments. Telemedicine

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offers a bandwidth to offer medical aid without hurting sentiments. Of course, several cases do not offer a similar flexibility and in such cases, telemedicine offers a solution to help the patient in need.

Medication Adherence: Medical intervention is not much help if there is no medication adherence. Checking the patient’s vitals and regulating them for further signs (in case of any) is important to keep chronic illnesses at bay. This is especially difficult for the rural population, making the journey to the big cities can be arduous for them but grave for their health. Telemedicine yet again offers a resolution remotely to track the patient’s health via numerous health tech devices at their behest.

This ensures that the patient receives timely medical advice in order to prevent recurring illnesses or long-term illness.

Comfort to the Patient: Telemedicine saves the patient the trouble of traveling long distances and as a result, undermines their health. Easy to access consultations from the comfort of their neighbourhood allows them to save time as well as money, ensuring their enthusiastic participation and a better outcome as well.

Technologies for Telemedicine New technologies are always on a rise and telemedicine, especially in the pandemic era has a lot of scope to introduce new technology to cater to the rural population. Some of the upcoming technologies in telemedicine: Artificial Intelligence: AI is a part of almost every sphere today and medicine is yet another sector with tremendous scope for AI. Telemedicine can be greatly advantaged by AI-driven smart technologies like predictive algorithms to enable remote screening or care-assistive apps that reduce redundant tasks like filling out prescriptions and generating medical reports.

Augmented and VR: Great for real-time information on the patient’s vitality, virtual reality allows the doctor to check the patient without being present in the physical vicinity. This has a greater scope for accuracy when it comes to remote diagnostics.

Tele-robots: Call them the new assistance, tele-robots can monitor health stsa, offer basic medical advice and of course, alert the medical expert in case of any discrepancy with the patient’ health.

India is still at the cusp of telemedicine and medical innovation. However, the pace has been amped up, courtesy the pandemic and will witness an exponential change in the way we view health-technology in the coming times.

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LEADER’S INSIGHT

A Call to Embrace Cloud in Healthcare: Industry Insights in the Aftermath of the Pandemic Dr. Sharada Rao, Vertical Head – Delivery, Life Sciences, Birlasoft

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uring the early outbreak of the pandemic last year, Huawei Cloud offered an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled pneumonia diagnostic solution to several hospitals in Ecuador. This example of the use of cloud technology in the effort to beat COVID-19 was much publicized.

The Vice President of the Latin American nation, Otto Sonnenholzner, credited the Chinese tech major for enabling Ecuador to become the first country within the region to embrace a game-changing technology that would allow medical practitioners to determine the standard of care on patients infected with the coronavirus.

Huawei wasn’t the only case in point of a technology company diving into the realms of remote patient care in the light of a pandemic.

Technology giants, the likes of Google, were quick to set foot into this sector and maximize first-mover advantage. In collaboration with their partner MTX Group, Google Cloud developed a cloud-based application to extract insights and monitor the coronavirus disease spread. Google assisted the Oklahoma State Department of Health in the United States

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Dr. Sharada Rao is the Vertical Head – Delivery for Life Sciences at Birlasoft, managing ITeS services for Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology and Medical Devices customers globally. She is a technofunctional industry leader with 30 years of experience in multiple business leadership functions, strategy, innovation, and operations. She is adept at leading global, cross-cultural teams and building organizations for stakeholder value. She has played the roles of Board Member and CEO to two startups prior to joining Birlasoft. She has gestated futuristic Industry 4.0 post graduate academic curriculum at premier business schools in India.

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to deploy an app that enabled healthcare professionals to follow up directly with patients exhibiting symptoms.

Assurance of the required sort can be done if the medical supply chain is modernized

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Exploring the Full Potential of Virtual Care Interestingly, the pandemic has changed the focus of technology corporations from scouting for opportunities to leverage automation to reap business benefits to innovators who are transforming healthcare through their renewed emphasis on fulfilling public health responsibilities. Similarly, healthcare providers, virologists, drug manufacturers have significantly changed their modus operandi. Deviating from legacy processes of clinical trials, they’ve come to embrace technology as the determining factor in their scope of operations.

Upon critical analysis of the management of vaccine trials globally, one can see the role of AI and intelligent automation every step of the way. There has been a cross-border collaboration in discovery, precision in manufacturing, and improved speed in drug lifecycle management. Sharing clinical lifecycle data on the cloud-enabled global pharmaceutical stakeholders to monitor and evaluate parameters of adverse events reporting systems (AERS) in a unified manner. Trends such as these forced a sudden modernization of the biopharma industry, the outcome of which was seen in metrics of improved personalized care, connected delivery of patient supervision, and standardization of remote care towards the end objective of saving lives.

Being Mindful of Technology, Judiciously Securing the Process of Modernization Evidently, the adoption of AI and modern technologies of cloud computing can transcend traditional physical boundaries within an organization. Leveraging the Internet of Things (IoT) enables the provision of medical services over connected cloud platforms. Doctors stand to gain in providing secure and private telehealth consultations and oversee patients at scale through holistic patient-centric connected care solutions.

While there is increasing recognition of cloud technologies in healthcare, one cannot simply ignore that the adoption of these new-age technologies may be hampered by concerns of quality assurance, privacy, service reliability, and data integrity. The pandemic context has imbibed a strong sense of purpose in implementing and benefiting from the fast scale-up of cloud-based solutions. Now that the momentum to this

compulsion has been established, it is time to be mindful of the risks and compromises associated with the execution of such solutions at speed.

As we weigh and dissect these threats, we cannot simply shy away from cloud technologies overall to repudiate the risks related to them.

To this end, it is the additional reliance on blockchain and connected physical platforms that can help pharmaceutical companies take off in the direction of improved healthcare practices, which are secure in the truest sense of the term.

A blockchain-based technology platform, VXPASS, which deals in the management, storage, and verification of global vaccination records, announced the release of their digital covid card. This allows medical professionals to securely document a patient’s status during their vaccination doses by creating a digitally signed version of the COVID-19 vaccine certificates.

VXPASS has, in effect, signalled the medical sciences industry towards a direction of data repository which records all relevant vaccine data without storing personally identifiable information (PII).

This is a welcome development in healthcare as hospitals today are expected to keep complete electronic health records at their disposal. It is imperative, PII data need to be secure, encrypted, and available on interoperable cloud platforms.

To address data breaches and cybersecurity concerns, blockchain in healthcare is gradually emerging as the norm and not an exception.

Medical and law enforcement authorities now can have standardized encrypted records of vaccination, including when each dose was administered, and the type of vaccine taken.

Telehealth practices are being rapidly adopted, and COVID-19 has only accelerated the pace of this adoption. Last year alone, the US reported 46% of their patients had opted for a telehealth consultation; this was a stark increase from its 11% metric in 2019. Using AI and cloudenabled technology platforms, healthcare service providers can provide seamless experiences to their patients that overcome the need for physical contact or presence. Patient-centric connected care, device and IOT in Medical-enabled services, secure and private telehealth, data lakes on the

cloud, and efficiencies of scale in care delivery are now forcing holistic platform creation for healthcare that combine these features. These Connected Physician Platforms offer enhanced medical research, enhanced hospital operations, and a connect with key opinion leaders that helps drive prescription patterns and healthcare solutioning. AI drives improved HCP data management, smoother operations, insightsdriven healthcare, and speed of the process.

Healthcare providers (HCPs) connected on the cloud through IoT-enabled technology platforms have claimed that they can supervise 50 to 175 times the number of patients than they did before. While this gives ample scope for medical organizations to broaden their avenues of research and hospital operations and offer new forms of prescriptive care, the feasibility of this trend can only be attested if technology assures controlled management of patient data and insights be used towards the end of improved healthcare.

Assurance of the required sort can be done if the medical supply chain is modernized to track fraudulent and suspicious activities. The business case for securitization of the industry can be formulated from the total $250 billion of current US healthcare spending that could potentially be virtualized. Without security, the healthcare industry stands at the risk of compromising patient care and the financial feasibility of an emerging and promising sector.

Gearing Up to the New Normal While tools and technologies of intelligent automation are crucial to innovation in healthcare, the advantage of using AI and cloud computing to monitor clinical trials, individual patient outcomes, detect adverse reactions, and receive real-time alerts of global vaccination programs as set departure from traditional healthcare practices is second to none. It is only a matter of time before the use of cloud computing and associated newage technologies become commonplace and a starting point for medical practitioners rather than a force multiplier in the global healthcare industry.

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COMPANY SPOTLIGHT

REDCLIFFE LIFE DIAGNOSTICS TAKING THE FIRST STEP INTO GENOME TESTING

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iagnostics are an essential part of treatment today as doctors and health practitioners have increasingly started to depend on them for better diagnosis and treatment.

Diagnostic tools help them pinpoint the root cause of illnesses and diseases, thus making it easier and more accurate to treat.

The global diagnostics for coronavirus alone have been valued at $73,538.02 million in 2020 and is expected to be $15579.56 million by 2026. Driven by this pandemic situation, it dominates the diagnostic market on a global level. “70% of decisions that medical experts take on patient treatment depend on

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diagnostics tests, but at the same time, the diagnostics industry in India accounts for only 5% of the total health system costs,” says Mr. Dheeraj Jain, Founder, Redcliffe Life Diagnostics.

Redcliffe Life Diagnostics paves a way for the future of diagnostics by using stateof-the-art technology and infrastructure for all medical testing purposing, including COVID-19 testing services, fertility tests genome testing, conclusive diagnosis, fetus screening, digital tracking, and much more.

Through this process, this leading and trusted diagnostics center strives to create comprehensive healthcare packages for

Mr. Dheeraj Jain, Founder, Redcliffe Life Diagnostics

REDCLIFFE PAVES A WAY FOR THE FUTURE OF DIAGNOSTICS BY USING STATE-THE-ART TECHNOLOGY AND INFRASTRUCTURE

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full body testing that are affordable and accurate. By keeping in mind patient safety and wellbeing, these packages range from simple routine checkup testing to in-depth genetic testing and sequencing. Redcliffe Life Diagnostics focuses on reproductive health testing, rare diseases, and Cancer Genetic Diagnostics.

Apart from pathology services, routine testing, hormone testing, and COVID-19 tests, the center deals with genome testing and research that has the potential to advance the diagnosis of conditions caused by changes in the DNA and specify what treatments may be most effective. As an added benefit, it may also red-flag treatments likely to cause adverse reactions.

Redcliffe Life Diagnostics realized that the genomic era is now a reality and that genomic research in the present scenario is undergoing rapid advancements. It is used to test genome alterations for harmful changes anywhere in the gene, specifically in cancer diagnosis where there are genetic mutations in the genetic code of cells.

With genome testing, there is a more accurate level of diagnosis and removes a sense of uncertainty. it reduces the risk of cancer by making certain lifestyle changes if a patient has a positive result and can be easily corrected

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before it is too late. Through this, progressive cases can be treated systematically and can help the patient make informed medical and lifestyle decisions.

Being one of the leading diagnostics centers, Redcliffe Life Diagnostics was massively impacted during the pandemic, in terms of functioning and revenue. Although diagnostics played a major role during these unprecedented times, the industry has been on a sharp decline since mid-March in walkins. Especially during the lockdown, the logistics to move samples around, stopping of OPD services and elective surgeries at hospitals and clinics, corporates working from home, etc., the B2B business was equally affected. But, Mr. Dheeraj sees a silver lining: “The market has been growing over the past five years. There have been various trends at the testing level, market level, and consumer level. Routine blood tests are still the mainstay of the overall industry, though there is a definitive trend towards higher molecular and genetic testing. The recent pandemic has probably opened up both awareness of tests using RT-PCR technology and also expanded the availability and capacity across the country,” he opines.

REDCLIFFE STRIVES TO HELP PATIENTS MONITOR THEIR DISEASE AND HELP REDUCE ITS INTENSITY

As a person who is highly influenced by the industrialist Ratan Tata, Mr. Dheeraj follows his view on business principles and customer-centric approach as something to be admired. In a similar way, he aims to achieve it through Redcliffe Life, by spending a few months understanding the diagnostics ecosystem before starting the company in 2018. Mr. Dheeraj went to several startup events in Bengaluru and Chennai and kept relentlessly hunting for the maiden investment opportunity. He finally started receiving them in November with 20 deals from across the country.

Ever since the inception of the startup, they have helped patients with genomicbased tests, the COVID RT-PCR, as well as routine diagnostics. Currently, Redcliffe Life Diagnostics comprises 6 labs and is planning to add 5-6 labs every month for the next 12 months. With Milind Soman as their brand ambassador, the center is going very strong on digital media space and some

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offline marketing as well by reaching out to KOLs / Clinicians / Hospitals to recommend specialized investigations for better treatment and monitoring.

What started as just a diagnostic center that majorly offered mother & child care highend specialized testing gradually moving into oncological genomics. It was in January 2021 when Redcliffe started creating footprints in the Routine Diagnostics market offering routine preventive health checkups and putting up routine satellite labs at various locations. Today, the diagnostic center employs over 150 people and plans to be a 1000+ team and increase their presence from 5 cities to 60 cities by 2022.

Today, Redcliffe Life Diagnostics provides Covid 19 insurance care to all stakeholders for

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free, providing oxygen cylinders and concentrators along with financial support to families of Redcliffe employees. The company also provides education for girl children. “We have taken up the cause of girl child education and have pledged for supporting at least 10 girl children who complete primary and secondary education through an education trust - ‘Kesari Devi Charitable Trust’ in Varanasi run by prof of IIT-BHU Prof. Ajit Narayan Tripathi & Prof. Vibha Tripathi,” says Mr. Dheeraj.

By keeping genome testing in mind, Redcliffe Life Diagnostics strives to help patients monitor their disease and help reduce the intensity of the situation through innovative approaches towards medical experiences.

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LEADER’S

INSIGHTS

Importance of Cybersecurity in the Health-Tech Sector Pankit Desai, Co-founder & CEO, Sequretek

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he past several months have tested humanity in more ways than one. Citizens, corporations, and governments all have had to re-invent their routines while minimizing disruptions. No other segment, however, has been more impacted than healthcare. From being on the frontlines of this war to adopting technology at an unprecedented speed and level, they have shown exceptional adaptability. There is no doubt that this transformation played an essential role in reducing the health impact of the pandemic.

What constitutes healthcare The word “Healthcare” is pretty broad and sometimes gets interchangeably used with “Health care.” While the first defines the industry that creates an ecosystem that focuses on and facilitates human well-being, the latter is targeted to an individual, like taking care of a patient or offering treatment.

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Pankit, a veteran of IT industry, brings 20+ years of hardcore technology and leadership experience from the information technology industry to lead Sequretek. Prior to Sequretek, he was with Rolta as the President of Business Operations. He has also served in senior leadership capacity with NTT Data Inc, Intelligroup, Wipro and IBM India. His vast experience has given him the ability to manage and scale global business units and service lines rapidly and efficiently.

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The major constituents of the “Healthcare” industry, therefore, will be the triumvirate of “3Ps”: “Patient,” a consumer of the service offered by the industry “Provider” includes Caregivers - hospitals, doctors, nurses, support staff Manufacturers - pharma companies, medical devices, Service providers - pharmacies, laboratories, research, clinical trials “Payer” comprises of Insurance companies - who become the aggregator of financial risk Governments - who step in as backstop to the sector Corporates - who look to offer coverage as part of employee benefits The above is not an exhaustive list but a representative picture of the entire healthcare ecosystem.

Healthcare to Healthtech Harold Wolf, President, and CEO of Health Information and Management Systems Society while sharing his thoughts around innovation and technology at the “Future of Med 2020” conference mentioned “Digital health and health tech tools and capabilities have long been recognized as providing credible support for most of these challenges. With the pandemic and the advanced tools today, they’ve really put the spotlight on the capabilities and the opportunities for digital health.”

Traditionally, technology consumption in the healthcare segment has been slow, barring a few exceptions. However, in the recent past, each of the “3Ps” has been forced to embrace tech like never before. For “Patients,” it has meant interacting and getting treated using video calls, WhatsApp. The physical touchpoints have been reduced only to extreme cases.

While the “Providers” have had to innovate the most with taking in technologies that offered easy access, contact tracking and tracing, logistics of distribution, redefined and distributed supply chain, new vaccines, and drugs to repurposing existing ones for treatment. Technologies like IoT, Industry 4.0, genomics, mRNA found a firmer footing in the ecosystem. The “Payers” on the other hand, as per a recent McKinsey report, were also forced to rethink financial guarantees, streamline their pre authorization processes, and restructure their contracts, including new value-based payment arrangements, all as efforts to help support providers during the challenges of COVID-19 disruptions Can cyber risks be far behind Almost on cue that the COVID-19 virus started impacting the world, another virus, albeit the computer one, began holding

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The reality of “Healthcare” being “Health-Tech” is already onto us

the healthcare world hostage. According to Ponemon, Healthcare has the highest cost of a data breach at $7.1 Million per breach (10% increase over 2019), while Tenable suggests healthcare was the most hit segment in 2020.

Why the attacks?

The rapidity and the magnitude of the transformation, enabled by a close alignment between business needs and technology drivers, have resulted in several unintended challenges, the key to the increased cybersecurity risk for all the 3Ps. As per Ponemon 2020 report, 50% of the breaches were linked to malware attacks in the healthcare segment, and the balance split almost evenly between poorly configured systems and human errors. The healthcare industry spends an average 4% of their IT budget on security against 15% in the financial services (2021 Security report by Herjavec Group) results in less than a quarter deploying security automation, making them an easier target.

Beyond the specific to the sector issues, other pandemic specific dynamics have crept in for the Providers and the Payers; • Interchangeable use of assets for professional and personal purposes making it easier for attackers • Inadequate testing of newly transformed digital processes for remote access creates loopholes • Difficulty in enforcing corporate security policies around patching, malware detection, and secure networks As far as the challenges for individuals (Patients) are concerned, they stem from the fact that; • Most of the individuals consuming the technology online are digital novices like kids, senior citizens, and homemakers. General lack of security awareness in this segment potentially exposes them to social engineering attackers • A lot of personal information is now getting shared on public platforms (though encrypted) like WhatsApp. There isn’t much accountability on how and where this data will end up.

What are the steps companies and individuals can take?

In this always-on world, a permanent vigil is an essential element of staying ahead of cybersecurity threats. It starts with a change in mindset where all the constituents, i.e., users, implementers, and securers of technology, shoulder

their responsibility to ensure that there are no loopholes for someone to exploit.

Social engineering is the most effective attack vector that targets the users, especially the digital novices. We all have traveled enough time through the airports. We have heard this constant announcement on PA systems “if you find any unidentified or suspicious object at the airport, it needs to be reported to the security staff.” This one statement has stopped more bomb attacks than all other security measures put together. Much the same way, there is a need to bring awareness and curb our Curiosity, Hubris, Apathy, and Ignorance instincts, which the attackers use to carry out social engineering attacks.

Most technology implementers lack an understanding of security best practices and hygiene; this coupled with time pressure results in poorly designed, coded, and tested technology projects. It’s during subsequent audits or a breach that one realizes the loopholes that got left out. Organizations need to incorporate security practices as part of the gating criteria as part of the design and project go-live.

Security professionals have an unenviable job of being the last line of defense, with their budgets viewed more as a cost line item than a risk premium. They need to understand and talk business context; this will allow the organization to make decisions that align with the risks they face. As per a recent report by Fire Eye, 35% of the company’s security products have overlapping features, and 80% of the products are misconfigured, leading to gaps in cyber defense. Therefore, it is essential for security professionals not to get caught up in the three-letter acronym products and their feature sets. They need to look at what exists in their environment, ensure it is appropriately implemented, follow it up with a proper monitoring and response mechanism before looking at additional investments.

In summary The reality of “Healthcare” being “Health-Tech” is already onto us, and the pace set during the past few months will only accelerate, resulting in an increased security risk. While several countries have woken up to this threat and legislated compliance controls, some laggards still exist in the race. A combination of increased technology consumption, leading to higher security risk and therefore onerous compliance, creates a vicious cycle. For the stakeholders, this means that unless they take proactive steps to build the security framework as part of their day-to-day operations, it may be too high a barrier to overcome.

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EXPERT

OPINION

Is Superficial Data Misleading Healthcare Priorities In India?

Nitthin Chandran, Co-Founder & CEO, MedPiper Technologies

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n 2016, post completion of his MBBS, Dr. Satish Kumar took up a stint back in his town in Chikmanglur to fulfil his inherited, life-long dream of bringing care to his neighbours, family and friends with his own clinic. A quaint town with seasonal tourist thoroughfare, he is well equipped with his MBBS to deal with most of the recurring investigations in his hometown. With a hasslefree walk-in of 10-12 patients per day and his consultation at a local hospital nearby, Dr. Satish earns about ₹45,000 ($600) per month, with income going up to ₹70,000 ($900) on a good month, for about 2 hours of engagement per day, out of his total 8-10 hours available every day.

Unfortunately, between the EMI on his loan to set up the clinic, bills and expenses, Dr. Satish is struggling to make progress.

Observing a growing pattern of Diabetes Mellitus in patients at the private hospital he consulted at, he decided to pursue a 6-month course online, recommended by an ad he found on Facebook, paying over $2500 for a fellowship. With this, his hourly rate could go marginally higher, and he’d see more specialised patients, drive deeper engagement and improve his current merge engagement hours.

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Having worked in the healthcare management consulting industry for 11 years, Nitthin Chandran, CoFounder and CEO, MedPiper Technologies, is aware of the industry’s bottlenecks and regulatory barriers that prevented or slowed down efficiency in serving care. By looking deeper, he figured he could provide a solution for this, by enabling doctors to profile themselves better and more transparently, thus creating an open platform for healthcare practitioners and industry.

So, he teamed up with his old college mate, Pranay Suyash, to create MedPiper Technologies.

An engineer by education, Nitthin is a YCombinator & SLP (Startup Leadership Program) alum 2020.

Before MedPiper, he also cofounded another startup, that he exited in 2014, post which he led BD & growth department at QuickRide.

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Today, over 2 years into an expensive fellowship, Dr. Satish is still nowhere ahead. He has not seen a major uptick in engagement; his wages still remain fluctuating at the private hospital; and COVID has all but sealed the operations at his private clinic. On a good day, he sees about 20 patients. On a bad day, he’s left drumming his fingers, waiting for the calendar to fill up.

Dr. Satish is one among 4,20,000+ such doctors in India, who record active engagement for less than 20% of their daily allocated time to work. Forget the medical staffing shortage in India, we have a problem of mass underutilisation of resources in healthcare, driving an already anaemic system further to its knees.

Urban vs. Rural Divide At over 12% of the GDP, healthcare is one of India’s largest industries in terms of people employed or revenues generated. Standard economic models should have suggested a parallel growth in wages among the skilled manpower in the sector. Reality says the opposite. Medico manpower wages, for both doctors and nurses, have plateaued.

In Dr. Satish’s case, he was one among the less than a handful of his batchmates who decided to stick with a rural location for their practice. The rest of his batchmates moved to urban, tier-1 centres in search of higher-paying jobs, better coaching centres and access to broader markets. Yet, the average income for a medical graduate hovers around $700 to $840 per month, with most assignments being a gig-economy format, with extreme volatility in terms of pay, engagement volumes and location.

Add to these, the barriers to migration (state licensing, verification checks etc) and fragmented data sources, what we end up with is a free-floating population of medical practitioners in excess in urban centres, while large hospitals have anywhere from 200- 350 unfulfilled locum stints, denying patient care and hampering revenue operations for healthcare operators.

Could telemedicine be a game-changer?

Over two dozen new funded telemedicine/teletherapeutics startups have propped up in the last 12 months, but they still do not empower doctors like Dr. Satish. Most platforms go after existing specialists or require mandatory specialisations; engagement is highly erratic; and the technology is not built to optimise for the practitioner.

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The huge influx of VC capital has not driven allocative efficiency in healthcare models, be it digital or offline. And when capital does not drive efficiency but is purely spent on acquisition costs and marketing costs, wealth is not created and only transferred across hands, with no improvements for the key beneficiaries, industry or society.

This means installing over a dozen different apps, each following their own code of procedures and engagement, with no guarantees on time spent on any of these platforms converting to assured, recurring income. MedPiper seeks to address and eliminate this information asymmetry and optimise the existing manpower in the healthcare industry with our technology. Being the complete and robust end-toend solution provider for healthcare practitioners, our tech allows the optimization of the user experience across the entire career lifecycle of a doctor, from the time they graduate and job hunting to updating and improving their medical knowledge in their opted fields of specialization.

Could the aggregation model drive efficiency?

The simple answer is yes. Aggregating supply and demand on a common platform, with a matching algorithm mapping the stakeholders to drive liquidity, could theoretically drive improvements in healthcare outcomes, without having a need for surge in practitioner numbers.

At MedPiper, in the last 3 months alone, we have enabled over 28000 doctors across India to drive over 0.55 million active patient engagements, across both telemedicine and offline hospitals and clinics.

We leverage AI and technology for verification of profile credentials by peers, medical educators, and employers, and to match such profiles for job requirements and upskilling opportunities. We have built and are constantly updating a state-ofthe-art modern knowledge graph of peer-verified and peer-authenticated healthcare professionals and practitioners.

By expanding their reach, today doctors like Dr. Satish can treat over 30 patients every day, driving engagements that otherwise would have fallen through the cracks during the pandemic, while enabling more income. The average hospital has seen an improvement in patient engagement by 36% while telemedicine platforms have seen a 62% improvement in TAT and a 42% increase in active practitioner availability.

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