Dr. Harsha Doddihal, co-founder and
CEO of Prana Healthcare Enablers and also a practising oncologist addressed us
on the use of technology to maintain and promote health. Being an entrepreneur
he stressed on the importance of innovative ideas and how to be unique in your
field. When the class was asked what they expected from the lecture it mainly
consisted of points like current and future developments in home healthcare.
Sir asked us for 2 basic definitions:
Technology and Health. While both these terms are separate they are coming
together to give us a better future for tomorrow. Defining both technology and
health he said: technology is applying scientific knowledge for practical
purposes, while health is (more than d
Dr Harsha then drew a timeline of the
technology, from the early 1800s to date, starting right from anaesthesia way back
between the 1799 to 1864, moving on to antiseptic surgery, radium and x-rays
which offered a visual inside the body without having to open it up,
vaccinations related to eradiation of small pox and now polio up until the
current trends in technology. He also mentioned how the practice of hand wash,
which was started as an antisepsis measure, has still, almost 150 years later,
not been implemented effectively. Helmets and seat belts is another technology
that can reduce mortality by 50% up until Infant incubators (to reduce IMR). The
World War resulted in new technology in healthcare such as scurvy was found to
be caused due to a deficiency of Vit C, Penicillin, Sonography, Cancer
chemotherapy, Titanium, to name a few.
Currently the UK, Canada and Cuba have
the best healthcare, being a socialist economy, though facilities and
medication available in Cuba are limited.
Sir went on to ask us 3 thought
provoking questions:
1.
How
is medicine changing?
2.
Will
hospitals change humans?
3.
How
will technology and humans force medicine to change?
It is here that we realize how
important digitization is and how tomorrows leaders will be those who make
their facilities “Patient friendly”
What keeps us healthy? This is a
question that everyone wants the answer to. According to sir it is 50% healthy
behaviour, 20% environment, 20% genetics & 10% access to care. What we
spend on, however is 88% on medical sciences, 4% on healthy behaviour, 6% on
other. 90% of healthcare expenditure happens in the last year of an
individual’s life…
With Indian Healthcare developing at
an alarming rate and the contribution to GDP increasing from 3% - 18% the
current market trends have changed too. Places like Practo are getting
increased investors and labs are looking for JCI and NABH accreditation.
Obamacare is one of the instrumental programmes in promoting and
revolutionizing Healthcare.
The current market trends discussed
were
-
Telehealth
– virtual care by doctors
-
Portable
diagnostics – which can be linked to phones
-
Patient
Empowerment – apps like “Patients like me”
-
Health
apps
-
Big
data
-
Home
ICU care
Medication adherence is also a
difficulty in today’s scenario. Since 50% of the patients fail to take their
medicines correctly, technology like pill bottles that change colour, SMSs,
missed calls, digestible sensors and so on help minimize such events.
India has not been far behind in
terms of technology there is ORS, Jaipur Foot, Cola Life project, and the
latest being 3D printing.
Sir ended his talk by talking a
little bit about the achievements of his company and saying that US trends
today will forecast India’s trends tomorrow and as healthcare professionals it
is important to understand such trends.
In all it was a very
insightful session and the information provided by sir was truly enlightening.
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