IET India to lead disease surveillance project with Centre for Health Research and Innovation (CHRI)

The project is funded by Siemens Healthineers, India as part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) India is leading a Disease Surveillance Project in partnership with CHRI (Centre for Health Research and Innovation) that will use publicly available non-personal data to improve India’s public health infrastructure’s preparedness for disease outbreaks by predicting outbreaks. The project is funded by Siemens Healthineers, India as part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Speaking on this initiative Dr Vikram Venkateswaran, Healthcare Working Group, IET Future Tech Panel, said, “This is a landmark initiative from the IET Future Tech Panel on a challenge of National importance. We want to be able to demonstrate the power of publicly available data for health surveillance and at the end of the project, build a first of its kind, scalable model. With combined strengths of CHRI, IET and Siemens Healthineers, I am sure we will be able to build a unique solution to scale.”

Neeraj Jain, Country Director, PATH India said, “The pandemic shed light on the importance of real-time monitoring of disease to meet the healthcare needs of the country. The government’s Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme promises to enable tech-enabled monitoring of disease trends, for epidemic prone diseases for early detection and response, thus enabling the prevention of another healthcare crisis. Through this initiative and collaboration, we aim to help bring this mission to fruition.”

Shekhar Sanyal, Country Head, IET India added, “These kinds of multi-party, industry-partnerships and synergies are key in establishing important data-led, predictive and intuitive healthcare systems that the country needs today. Tech-driven projects will be the cornerstone of lasting social impact, especially in healthcare. This project is a direct step towards solving the Healthy Lives societal challenge from the IET’s global strategic plan for 2030.”

Speaking on the growth of Healthcare IT, Dileep Mangsuli, India Executive Director- Development Centre of Siemens Healthineers said, “The digital health will transform population health in future. Healthcare analytics will become core to healthcare planning and future preparedness. Predictive analytics and forecasting models can be used to prepare for future disease outbreaks. This project is definitely a step in the right direction, and we are happy to be supporting this initiative.”

Spread over a year, the project aims to feed into the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme.