FICCI, MoHFW organise annual ‘FICCI Heal’ conference in New Delhi

Need to have ‘Make in India’ strategies for Indian healthcare disease management: Dr Jitendra Singh, MoS for NE Region & PMO

Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), in association with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, recently organised the ninth annual FICCI Heal conference in New Delhi. The two-day conference on ‘India’s Healthcare: Time for Paradigm Shift’ discussed various steps and measures for bringing a paradigm shift in the Indian healthcare sector.

Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for development of North Eastern region and Minister of State for Prime Minister Office, Government of India, addressed the inaugural session. Commenting on the conference theme, he said that today the nation and society is going through a paradigm shift as the nation is evolving and growing rapidly, thanks to technological revolutions and experiments with stem cells. Anticipating the global issues which India is likely to face, Singh highlighted that globalisation is an issue because whatever changes and development we are seeing in India are happening in parallel at the global level as well.

Referring to the gap in healthcare service delivery in urban and rural areas, Singh mentioned that there is a need to provide affordable healthcare services to 600 million people in rural areas. Rural areas lack quality healthcare and equipment which requires immediate attention. “We have to overcome the rural -urban divide. Urbanisation in rural areas has happened very fast and now we are seeing a lot of lifestyle diseases in rural areas as well. So, we need to have rural infrastructure similar to that in urban areas,” Singh informed.

While informing about malpractices in the Indian healthcare sector and immediate steps which need to taken, Singh pointed out that in rural areas, people are dying from diseases like diabetes, heart ailments etc. while on the other hand, urban patients are undergoing avoidable stent surgeries. This is where we need to put in healthcare strategies, advocated the Minister.

Today, more than 65 per cent of the nation’s population is below the age of 35 and can become the largest supplier of youth power, provided they are healthy. Singh said, “We cannot afford to overlook our younger population who may face serious lifestyle ailments. In order to ensure that our younger population do not face such problems, we need to work on strategies at therapeutic as well as the healthcare delivery level. Simultaneously, we also need to think about our elder population, as life expectancy has increased in the last two to three decades.”

Summing up his message, Singh said, “We need to have ‘Make in India’ strategies for Indian healthcare disease management.”

On the occasion, the Minister, along with other dignitaries, released two reports: the FICCI-KPMG thematic paper on ‘Healthcare: The Neglected GDP Driver’ and FICCI-IMS ‘Health Knowledge Paper on ‘Raising Capital in Healthcare’.

Delivering the the keynote address, Sangita Reddy, Chairperson, FICCI AP State Council and FICCI National Services Council; and Joint MD, Apollo Hospitals Group, said that the healthcare industry needs a major paradigm shift in its thought process and to recognise that every precious and priceless life needs to be protected. She said that it was imperative to invest in preventive care in India as most of the diseases that have a cure are detected very late depriving the patient of a treatment. Hence, mass screening must be carried out in order to identify diseases such as cancer and diabetes at an early stage to allow a comprehensive treatment.

Speaking about medical technology innovations, Reddy said that it rests on four pillars — funding, talent, supportive and indigenous. There is a need to embed digitalisation in healthcare environment and create a healthcare digital dividend. She added that telemedicine, tele-ICU and teleradiology could go a long way in remote care and this could be achieved with the help of technology.

She further said that predictive analytics should be the order of the day. More thrust must be given to customised treatment programmes, which could be based on genomics. This approach would enable to create a universal health record and allow for providing a patient with far-more insightful treatment. She added that a database based on genetic data and profiling data needs to be created for patients.

Elaborating the importance of collaboration amongst healthcare providers, Reddy said that public and private sectors must work in tandem for serving a large segment of population with quality and timely treatment. She added that Healthcare Information Platform should be created where the public and private healthcare players are on the same level.

Referring to India’s strong foothold in alternative medicine, Reddy said that the culture of integrated medicine should be promoted in India. Along with allopathic treatment, it should be scientifically determined whether alternative medicine could be of help to a patient. India in the past was known for its legacy in alternative medicine and it needs to be encouraged, she said.

Concurring with these views, Dr Nandakumar Jairam, Chair, FICCI Health Services and Chairman & Group Medical Director, Columbia Asia Hospitals India, said that there was a need for collaborative effort in the sector, which could a long way in improving the healthcare scenario in the country.

Pankaj Patel, VP, FICCI and Chairman and MD, Zydus Cadila Healthcare said that the national movement for ‘Swachh Bharat’ can be viewed as ‘Swastha Bharat’, as it comprises a series of public health initiatives. FICCI believes that a ‘fourth layer, the pre-primary layer’, below the primary care needs to be created to ensure continuum of care for a billion plus population as the traditional three tier system has not delivered the desired result. Also, there was a need to evolve workable PPP strategies to collectively face the challenges and build on each others strengths.

Patel recalled a conversation with PM Narendra Modi when he used to be the Chief Minister of Gujarat where the latter had reportedly spoked of the need for public-private-partnerships.

Dr Arvind Virmani, Mentor – Public Policy and Economics, FICCI and Founder Board Member, Forum for Strategic Initiative, said that the ‘Digital India’ platform should be leveraged to provide e-health, e-medicine and e-learning to rural areas. Private sector should help the government in making e-platforms more effective by strengthening public health systems.

Emphasising the importance of data and scientific analysis to derive at information, Dr Virmani said that public health education has been long neglected and now it must be focused on. Citing an example, he said that earlier it was perceived that India suffered from malnutrition due to lack of food and nutrition on food. But studies have shown that bad sewage systems leading to bad sanitation, was a major cause of malnutrition. Hence, it is essential to spread public health education.

He added that FICCI Health Services Committee has been supporting and partnering with the Health Ministry and other stakeholders towards creating the building blocks for quality healthcare by developing Standard Treatment Guidelines (STGs) for tertiary, secondary and primary care, national costing guidelines, categorisation of healthcare providers and standardisation of quality indicators. Now is the time to create appropriate mechanisms and awareness for seamless implementation.

Dr Nandakumar Jairam, Chair, FICCI Health Services Committee and Chairman and Group Medical Director, Columbia Asia Hospitals India, said that there was a need to look at preventive healthcare and take a holistic view of the healthcare scenario. Also, the cost of healthcare services delivery has emerged as one the biggest challenges for the sector. He added that healthcare sector could provide employment to a large section of society and there was need to demonstrate a thought-process to move ahead in this direction.

He said that health of the nation was important as it had an impact on country’s economy and growth. In India, 70 per cent healthcare services were being delivered by the private sector and the government was largely playing the role of a facilitator. In the last few decades, India witnessed a change in its diseases where now the focus is on 60 per cent non-communicable diseases rather than communicable diseases. Hence, there was a need to not just focus on preventive healthcare but also in services delivery to deal with both communicable and non-communicable diseases. .

Ashok Kakkar, Co-Chair, FICCI Health Services Committee and MD, Varian Medical Systems International India delivered the concluding remarks.

Vishal Bali, Co-Chair, FICCI Health Services Committee and Asia Head – Healthcare, TPG Growth and Shobha Mishra Ghosh, Senior Director, FICCI were also present.

The FICCI Healthcare Excellence Awards for 2015 were also announced at the event. Two eminent personalities – Dr Naresh Trehan and Sangita Reddy bagged the Lifetime Achievement award and the Healthcare Personality of the Year award respectively at the event. The awards were given out in ten different categories like patient safety, Primary Health Center, innovation in medical technology, medical insurance product, skill development, social initiatives, customer service improvement – private and public etc. The other winners were Apollo Speciality Hospital, Chennai; Max Super Speciality, Hospital, Saket; Christian Medical College, Vellore; Wipro GE Healthcare; Religare Health Insurance; Johnson and Johnson Diabetes Solutions India; BBC Media Action (India); Drashti Netralaya; and HLL Lifecare.