The second annual Hospital Expansion Summit organised by Noppen, an international company facilitating business across Asia and Europe, was held at the Eros Hilton, Delhi from 9-10 May. The two day summit saw panel discussions and sessions addressing various challenges facing the healthcare industry. The topics covered by the speakers on the first day ranged from designing energy efficient and green hospitals, public private partnership and its relevance, maternal health, better patient care management and of course the future roadmap for all stakeholders.
Ravi Kumar Dhulipalia, Head-Strategic markets, Ingersoll Rand India, outlined the role of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems on helping reduce hospital infections. Taking an example of the situation in the US, he said that one out of 22 patients coming to a hospital acquire secondary infection, with airborne infection affecting nine per cent of the population. ICUs contribute to more than half of the infections. With 65 per cent of energy bill derived from them, energy efficient HVAC systems can not only help reduce cost, but also reduce energy consumption of the hospital.
Dr Praneet Kumar, CEO, BLK Hospital gave a bird’s eye view of the challenges, trends and opportunities in the sector today. He cited the lack of architects and project management agencies specialising in healthcare, which is the need of the hour. He also opined that soft skill development should be the main focus of doctors when it comes to their interaction with patients, but our model is service delivery oriented. He also enumerated that primary care, long thought to be a domain of the public sector, has seen enterprising ventures in the past few years with hospitals increasingly moving into Tier II and II cities.
The role of elevators which account for 12 per cent of a building’s energy consumption was also highlighted along with reducing bacterial transmission. Transport solutions are crucial in a hospital with time management being a key, reiterated Ramgopal Yadavalli, Major Project Sales, Kone elevator India. Tier II and II cities are fast emerging as the destination of choice, but operating there has its own challenges, that were explained by Dr Gurbir Singh, Medical Director, Fortis, Mohali. He added that a low doctor to patient ratio, unavailability of nurses and technicians, funding problems, and inferior contractor quality further compound the issue.
Narendra Malhotra, Managing Director of Agra based Rainbow Hospitals stressed that maternal and neonatal health is the pillar of a nation’s healthcare index and cannot be discounted for. He gave an overview of the situation in South Asian countries including India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, with the latter emerging on top having reached its MDGs. The day ended with a panel discussion on PPP models in healthcare that can help optimise capital investment and at the same time reduce the cost of delivery to a larger population base to help themaccess quality healthcare. The panelists agreed that until there are no defined frameworks in which robustness of the model can be tested, we’ll keep going in circles.
The second day saw speakers delve into how design, renovation and other technological applications, including implementation of a digital touch can benefit hospitals alongwith signages and better hardware solutions. With India famous as the diabetes capital of the world, a discussion on the disease epidemic also ensued. Dr Rahul Kashyap from Mayo Clinic delved into the implications of clinical research and evidence-based medicine. The two-day event saw enthusiastic participants from major hospitals in the country and healthcare professionals network and partner with each other and indulge in discussions.
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