Umakant Soni, Co-founder & CEO, ARTPARK explains Kalyani Sharma about drone technology and highlights that during COVID-19, the use of medical drones grew considerably to avoid the spread of infection. Drones were utilised to carry contactless personal protective equipment (PPE), gather laboratory samples, and distribute vaccines during the pandemic
Why does India need an advanced technology infrastructure to address healthcare emergencies and greater accessibility?
Healthcare services are primarily focused in urban areas due to a lack of suitable infrastructure and manpower, making providing healthcare in rural areas a major challenge. For some patients, the nearest doctor is a half-day drive away. Doctors in primary care and even community health centres may discover that there is no suitable specialist within 100 kilometres. Furthermore, vast distances can obstruct the distribution of best practices and care coordination. In such situations, an array of technological innovations and deployments can significantly impact India’s rural population.
This is where an electronic health record (EHR) is crucial to population health management and enables healthcare practitioners to examine a patient’s medical history irrespective of their location. Patients can receive more immediate and more accurate care by sharing information electronically rather than travelling long distances. Clinicians can review and analyse previous visits, tests, diagnoses, and correspondence with other professionals, resulting in more precise and personalised care. Also, telehealth systems can make remote consultations and diagnostics easier and more convenient for both patients and clinicians when professional help is needed. Thus, a fully comprehensive EHR would be extremely useful for rural patients.
The other major stumbling blocks to patient care are medication prescription and dispensation; this can also be done remotely. Medication’ ATMs,’ which are already being used in rural areas of South Africa and India, ensure that patients get the medication they need without relying on pharmacists, doctors, or other difficult-to-find experts and are clinically safe. Furthermore, these ‘ATMs’ could find their capabilities increased in the future, allowing them to function as an information kiosk and patient portal, supporting diagnosis, testing, and medication prescription, reducing the burden on community health centres and hospitals.
Apart from that, rural communities face a shortage of healthcare expertise. It is difficult for them to obtain specialised training, recruit existing skilled medical staff, and retain them for longer periods once they are there. As a result, providing specialised training to the existing population is one option to address this problem. It will solve the expertise problem and ensure that locals have appropriate job opportunities to progress.
Besides this, virtual reality can be used in rural areas to assist health professionals with training and knowledge by using training simulations with a headset that immerses them in a real healthcare scenario. With virtual reality, a range of scenarios could be developed that allowed a person living in a rural area to gain practical experience without actually being in the emergency room, adding to the pressure on staff and putting patients at jeopardy. Thus, bringing technology into medicine and healthcare in rural locations can improve healthcare delivery and allow for far more efficient and accurate diagnosis in situations where specialised knowledge is not always available at the time of care.
How do you see the role and adaptation of advanced technologies like drones, advanced air mobility and others in India?
A significant amount of the Indian population lives in rural and tribal areas. Apart from that, 40 per cent of villages in India don’t have all-weather connectivity. Thus, many healthcare emergencies are typically home-treated, as the time taken for any ambulance arrival is time-consuming and sometimes impossible. Moreover, given that India has a diverse landscape, with rural and tribal areas on plains, hills, mountains, and deserts, providing timely medical assistance and reaching these places in cases of natural or man-made calamities often becomes impossible.
In addition, doctors or paramedics must address many other medical emergencies, such as snake and animal bites, burns and scalds, wounds and fractures, or even electrocution within the golden hour. This is where the role and adaptation of advanced technologies like drones and advanced air mobility come into the picture.
Drone technology has started to gain traction in various sectors, and the COVID-19 catalysed drone usage in health care. During COVID-19, the use of medical drones grew considerably to avoid the spread of infection. Drones were utilised to carry contactless personal protective equipment (PPE), gather laboratory samples, and distribute vaccines during the pandemic. Besides this, we are all aware that blood transfusions are required in the event of a severe injury or a pregnancy that results in significant blood loss. As a result, drones may be able to assist in ensuring that blood is available when it is required. In addition, several clinically essential transfers, such as ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) and organ transport, are not possible with surface ambulances.
Given the need for high-quality emergency care and developments in drone technology, it is clear that advanced air mobility systems will begin to impact the future significantly. This will enable emergency medical service (EMS) teams to respond to an emergency in the shortest period of time. In addition, air ambulances with cutting-edge emergency care delivery technologies for patient stabilisation, resuscitation, monitoring, and audio/video telecommunication with a healthcare specialist could play a key role in providing life-saving care in a life-threatening situation.
What could be the possible challenges in the implementation of such projects or technologies in India? What is the need of the hour?
When it comes to innovative and new technology, we need a set of standards that everyone can rely on and precise and correct regulatory mechanisms. Despite its unique potential, air mobility is currently only available for a limited percentage of the most severe medical cases. This is due to the high historical costs, which are driven mainly by the high level of availability that these services demand and their low usage. Furthermore, evacuating a patient safely in challenging environmental conditions is a huge task. As a result, cutting-edge AI and robotics technologies will be necessary to enable a safe and effective system that can function in rough terrain and challenging situations.
What are your views on the acceptance of such technologies in the Indian healthcare system?
According to the Healthcare Access and Quality Index (HAQ), India ranks 145th out of 195 countries. Apart from that, the doctor-to-patient ratio is 1:1596, which is alarmingly low when compared to the WHO standard of 1:1400. Besides this, the disruptions caused by COVID-19 have increased the need for a robust and effective healthcare system. As a result, the quick adoption of innovative healthcare solutions based on knowledge and Artificial Intelligence has the potential to empower doctors to treat proactive disease conditions and scale healthcare across India by providing high-quality, low-cost care to the masses. It will help prevent the loss of billions of dollars and millions of lives around the world.
Can you throw some light on the role of partnerships and the PPP model in the successful implementation of such initiatives?
A nation’s real wealth is its healthy citizens. And the COVID-19 pandemic taught the world that a well-functioning healthcare system and a healthy population are vital to a country’s economic and social well-being. Furthermore, it is the responsibility of the government and the health-focused companies to ensure that people stay healthy and have easy access to quality healthcare. These innovative technologies have the potential to save human lives and reshape the economic and social landscape of a rapidly rising India. Thus, with the convergence of favourable government policies, industry players, service providers, medical professionals, and cutting-edge technology, can this be made possible.
Please tell us about ARTPARK’s efforts to automate the delivery of essential primary healthcare services in the rural parts of the country.
When it comes to addressing rising healthcare issues, prevention is key, as it is better to deal with manageable problems before they become major issues. On the other hand, the government cannot function and establish public policies in silos and must frequently rely on the subject area expertise of academia and industry. With this goal in mind, we established an organisation like ARTPARK so that the triple helix of academia, industry, and government may collaborate closely to address enormous societal problems using technology and scale them up through spin-offs.
Furthermore, ARTPARK is already working with AI and robotics startups like XraySetu. It is an AI-driven X-ray screening and interpretation platform for doctors, and Avtaar Robotics is a virtual healthcare services platform.
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Thank you for this informative Healthcare blog.