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Spearheading innovations for better healthcare

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Soma Tah
New Update

BANGALORE, INDIA: The first day of the third annual conference of Health 2.0 today in Bangalore raised deeper concerns about the lack of adequate infrastructure for healthcare in India and also raised hopes for a better tomorrow by showing how that challenges can be addressed by technological innovations.

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Over 40 Indian and international companies have participated in this 2-day event to get insights, ideas, case studies and analysis, solutions for healthcare challenges from Indian and International experts.

James Mathew, chairman, Health 2.0 India, said, "Our goal is to build awareness among patients, physicians and other health stakeholders that the digital revolution going on around them can, in fact, transform health."

"We also need to open the eyes of Indian engineers, entrepreneurs and others that one does not have to be a Doctor, Pharmacist or Nurse to take advantage of market opportunities in health or to be a part of transforming the industry."

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Indu Subaiya, co-founder and CEO, Health 2.0, said, "There is an increasing trend in terms of adaptation of healthcare technology in US as well as in India across the ecosystem including patients, healthcare practitioners and other care givers."

She mentioned that the biggest challenges are introducing adaptable technology, prioritizing user experience and analyzing the big data in intelligent way.

Ravi Kumar, CEO, Zanec, said "As per WHO standards, a hospital must have 2.6 beds per 1000 patients but in India the number is menial, just 1.6 beds per 1000 patients." The other two challenges that he stated were low numbers of healthcare professionals and poor healthcare coverage of Indians.

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The conference witnessed the presence of budding entrepreneurs and corporates from healthcare, pharmaceutical, IT industry and start-ups. There were various demos by entrepreneurs and start-ups on newer healthcare innovations which included dynamic digital and technology products.

Speaking on the occasion, Simone Ahuja, co-author of the book ''Jugaad Innovation'' said "the jugaad way of innovations has been center theme for Indian innovations and a lot can be learnt from that. Developers need to design products keeping in mind the Indian spending nature.''

Health 2.0 also serves as a platform that helps companies get noticed and attract funding, revenue generating contracts, distribution partnerships, etc and has helped raise over $10 Million so far.

Health 2.0 has introduced over 500 technology companies to the world stage, hosted more than 15,000 attendees at their conferences and code-a-thons, awarded over $5,277,000 in prizes through their developer challenge programs and inspired the formation of 70 new chapters in cities around the globe.

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