7th annual NCG meeting announces pioneering digital connectivity of 108 cancer centres

The two-day even saw over 150 participants from 108 centres across the country

The National Cancer Grid (NCG), launched in 2012 with the mandate of linking cancer centres across India, held its seventh meeting recently at the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, with over 150 participants from 108 centres across the country.

The development of a ‘Travelling School of Pathology,’ aimed at bringing training in quality cancer diagnosis to the doorsteps of pathologists in far flung areas, was piloted this year for pathology covering 12 cities in North-Eastern India and the results were shared at this forum. This is slated for replication in other parts of the country in the coming years.

Several breakout sessions were organised in order to plan for the major short term and long-term initiatives to be taken up by NCG like palliative care provision and training, health promotion and awareness, human resource development in oncology and health technology assessment.

On the second day of the two-day event, Dr Pramod Verma, Chief Architect, UIDAI, demonstrated how NCG member hospitals can benefit from the use of new features like Digilocker and digitatisation of birth and death records using the unique Aadhar identification number, in providing easy access to patients’ records and improving outcomes. The Digital Nerve centre, an initiative of TCS, Tata Trusts and the NCG was launched on the second day in the presence of Dr Sekhar Basu, Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy, N Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Sons, R Venkataramanan, Managing Trustee, Tata Trusts. This application is to be piloted in four cancer centres – Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai, Tata Medical Center, Kolkata, Adyar Cancer Institute, Chennai and RCC Trivandrum in the coming year.