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EmTech Spl: Putting 1bn Indians on Health Superhighway

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CIOL Bureau
New Update

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Can technology be the route to bring affordable healthcare to millions of rural Indians? This question was explored during the session on healthcare at EmTech2009?

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Guest speakers Dr Prathap C Reddy, chairman Apollo Hospitals, and Balvinder Singh Kalsi, president and CEO, DuPont India both felt that Indian villagers were ready and willing to adapt and experiment with technology if this route was chosen to provide them with access to healthcare.

While Kalsi cited his experience of connecting with the rural populace using the technological platform for their agricultural needs, Reddy described how his native village had embraced the concept of telemedicine and were very comfortable with it.

"The sense of adaptability to technology among rural populace is very high," said Kalsi.

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Reddy cited how telemedicine had already touched 2000 villages and a foundation had been laid for a health superhighway to make the promise of Universal Healthcare a reality at last.

"We had this plan in our mind for at least 10 years, but did not have the technology or applications. Now these are available," he said.

The health superhighway envisages connecting up a chain of hospitals - both government and private sector - through applications like telemedicine, mobile software and wireless networks so that doctors can connect up with villages in India.

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"We want to touch every single doctor in every corner of the country through a telemedicine network so that patients can not only get access to healthcare, but can get a doctor of their choice," said Reddy.

Other prescriptions to bring "good health" to a billion Indians was to adopt a more "preemptive" strategy.

"We have to focus on awareness so that we can postpone the age of lifestyle diseases - if a man is getting a heart attack today at the age of 40, can we push the age to 60 by an awareness drive," said Dr Reddy.

If they have been able to do this in parts of the US, then we can certainly do it, he added.

For more details on EmTech click here

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