The future of Indian healthcare lies not just on latest technology and connectivity but on building basic healthcare infrastructure in smaller towns to ensure last mile healthcare delivery, said Dr Giridhar Gyani, Director General, Association of Healthcare Providers (India).

He was speaking on the theme ‘Managing the Future of Healthcare’ at the inaugural session of TN Medclave 2021 organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Southern Region, in the city on Saturday.

Lack of tertiary care

Delivering the address virtually, Gyani said that in Tamil Nadu there are roughly 200 hospitals with more than 100 beds. However, 50 per cent of them are located in two cities — Chennai and Coimbatore. Similarly, in Telangana, there are over 120 hospitals with over 100 beds, out of which 118 hospitals are concentrated in Hyderabad alone, which means the rest of Telangana do not have any tertiary care facility.

“One can talk about artificial intelligence (AI), preventive care and centralised command systems etc but those things will take time. First, we need to have basic physical infrastructure in Tier 3 towns if you want AI, telemedicine or tele-consultation to work,” Gyani said.

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Highlighting India’s ranking in World Health Organisation (WHO) report and the Lancet’s latest healthcare access and quality (HAQ) index, which ranked India at 145 among 195 countries, Gyani said that the common point between both these studies is that India lacks in terms of availability and accessibility of quality healthcare.

Digital access

In her inaugural address, Suneeta Reddy, MD, Apollo Hospital Enterprises said digital transformation is playing a huge role in healthcare delivery and the Covid-19 pandemic has only accelerated digital adoption both by healthcare providers and the patients.

“According to estimates, 60 per cent of Indians now have a smartphone. We talk about healthcare not being accessible in Tier 2&3 cities but this is the best way to create access to those who are in Tier 2&3 cities so that they can then be brought to Tier 1 hospitals for those interventions that are required,” Reddy said.

Presence of investors

S Chandrakumar, Chairman, CII Tamil Nadu and Founder & Executive Chairman of Kauvery Hospital, noted that the entry of venture capitalists (VCs) and private equity (PE) firms into the healthcare sector since late 2000s has changed the healthcare delivery scenario in India.

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“When the investor came, they started focusing on governance, be it clinical or non-clinical governance. Those days, we never used to have a MIS in hospitals or we were compromising on the minimum wages and all those things. But now, all the funds started pushing on environmental, social, and governance (ESG), which become critical for all investments,” he added.

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