Dr Vikram Singh, MS (General Surgery), Aarvy Healthcare Super Speciality Hospital in an interaction with Express Healthcare explains that Indian healthcare ecosystem is rapidly expanding. With the advent of new challenges in the healthcare scenario, it is pivotal to leverage the advantage of technology to keep up with the changing times. Scalability of technology in healthcare, therefore, becomes critical to provide uninterrupted healthcare services maintaining the highest of standards
Walk us through the journey of Aarvy Healthcare Super Speciality Hospital. What are your plans for the Indian market?
The concept of genesis of Aarvy Healthcare can be traced back to the year 2003 when I and Dr Renu started with a 100 bedded facility in civil lines, with a vision to provide value based, cost effective, quality healthcare services to the community.
After having served the community with relentless zeal and dedication and pursuing their dream to provide all major specialities under one umbrella, the idea of Aarvy Healthcare was conceptualised in the year 2018. Since, then it always has been our endeavour to alleviate the health issues of the entire community in and around the vicinity of New Gurugram.
As the healthcare market is ever evolving, Aarvy Healthcare plans to keep abreast with the dynamic times by adopting and focusing on patient centric, quaternary healthcare services. Aarvy Healthcare plans to emerge as a market leader in provision of holistic healthcare services. To achieve this goal, it has associated itself with the American Oncology Institute to cater for all cancer treatment modalities viz. medical, radiation and surgical. It is a pioneer in implementing the state-of-the Art Smart ICUs supported by Mindray, has integrated modular OTs specially designed for organ transplants. Aarvy Healthcare is led by highly competent, dedicated and experienced doctors and medical professionals. All these factors, therefore, will provide the requisite momentum for the Superspecialty Hospital to achieve its mission of leading the Indian healthcare industry with innovation and serve with compassion.
Can you throw some light on the scalability of technology in the Indian healthcare system?
Indian healthcare ecosystem is rapidly expanding. With the advent of new challenges in the healthcare scenario, it is pivotal to leverage the advantage of technology to keep up with the changing times. Scalability of technology in healthcare, therefore, becomes critical to provide uninterrupted healthcare services maintaining the highest of standards. For example, at Aarvy we have implemented the smart ICUs. The Mindray powered technology enables the critical care specialists to closely monitor the patients’ stats at the convenience of their handsets. This not only drastically reduces the response time required to attend to a critical emergency with respect to the patients, but also helps maintain a database of acute cases admitted in the ICU for future reference and learning. Therefore, the need of the hour is to assimilate the technology to provide better treatment outcomes and also for maintaining of longitudinal health records for future research and analysis.
Do you think Indian healthcare/hospitals are still resistant to the adoption of technology in the system? What according to you are the major pros and cons of the technology adoption in the system?
Indian healthcare/hospitals have come a long way in terms of implementation of technology. However, the fact remains that adoption of technology at all levels is yet to be achieved. The COVID pandemic exposed several vulnerabilities in the healthcare systems, which could have been well averted had the appropriate technology been implemented at all levels. For example, the lack of teleconsultation facilities contributed to the unprecedented rush of patients to the hospitals during the various COVID waves. Many patients could have been treated in isolated conditions at home had teleconsultation been a regular feature. In another instance, monitoring of patients in the isolation wards would have become much easier and could have averted the exposure of the healthcare workers at regular intervals, had the Smart Monitoring System would been in place. These are some instances which indicate a rethink over the adoption of technology in healthcare scenario.
The major pros of adoption of technology is the scalability. Increase in workload could be easily handled without increasing the manpower too much. This reduces the burden on the treating doctors and healthcare workers and enables them to provide better assistance to the patients who critically require attention. The major con is the high cost of technology adoption. The cost factor delimits the ability of the healthcare organisation to go for a full-fledged implementation. Another con is the lack of standardised implementation of technology. For example, there are various forms of EMR systems being used in the healthcare organisation across India. If these are standardised, it would be a great boon for the medical professionals as they would be able to access the complete patient health records across the country during cross referrals and second opinions saving their time in provision of medical advise.
How has the doctor-patient relationship changed post-COVID?
While mutual Trust and Compassion still remain the fundamental pillars of Doctor Patient Relationship (DPR), there have been some instrumental changes in the DPR Post COVID. Earlier a physical examination/consultation was a norm for seeking a medical advise by the patient. However, post pandemic, the emphasis has shifted on teleconsultation and telemedicine. While the patients have become aware about the need to conduct a self examination so as to provide the requisite details to the doctor during the teleconsultation, the doctors have also learnt to make use of the available technology to assess the patients based on their self-evaluation. Emphasis is now been given towards regular health checkups by the treating consultants to assess the changes in the patients health due to previous history of a co-morbidity or an adverse health condition. The patients too have become aware of leading a healthy life style and frequently ask for holistic solutions rather than rudimentary medication and examinations.
What are the major gaps in our healthcare system that came into the limelight during the pandemic and still require attention?
The major gap in the healthcare system which was revealed during the pandemic was the unavailability of healthcare workers. It is a well-known fact that due to the sudden surge of patients in the hospitals, there was a tremendous pressure on the doctors and healthcare professionals to cater to them. This personally took a heavy toll on them as on the one hand they had to take care of the volumes of patients admitted under them and on the other they had to take care of their own selves and their families. Another major gap was the lack of capacity in terms of provision of space and other medical equipment/aid to the patients during the unprecedented surge of the pandemic. The sudden shortage of oxygen cylinders, lack of supply of critical lifesaving medicines, inaccessibility of teleconsultation services and the scarcity of beds for admissions in the hospitals have raised many red flags on the operational preparedness of the hospitals, with respect to the above aspects, to deal with such future situations.