HOSMAC Foundation Brings Together Experts, Policy-Makers, to Explore ‘Emerging Role of IT in Healthcare’
Focus on improving India’s healthcare infrastructure and making healthcare services accessible to India’s rural poor and remote areas

The HOSMAC Foundation focus on improving India’s healthcare infrastructure took a qualitative step forward with the Conference on the ‘Emerging Role of Information Technology in Healthcare’ on February 29, 2008, at New Delhi. The Conference was co-partnered by GTZ and IL&FS.


The Joseph Bhore Memorial Keynote Oration by Prof. M. S. Swaminathan, Member of Parliament and Chairman of the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai set the tone of the Conference, which saw participation by eminent domain experts and policy-makers.

Welcoming the participants, HOSMAC India Pvt. Ltd. Managing Director Dr. Vivek Desai, who is also the HOSMAC Foundation Managing Trustee, recalled Sir Joseph Bhore, who designed the Indian public healthcare system, saying that the Conference Oration was to commemorate the contributions of the man who is known as the ‘father’ of the country’s public health delivery structure. Dr Desai expressed support for the goal to make “telemedicine as common as cell-phones”, adding that the GIS mapping systems instituted by the Union Ministry of Health and the various IT applications could help improve the planning of healthcare delivery systems in the country.

The Conference spanned three thematic sessions - on Telemedicine, Health Information System (HMIS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) - with a concluding session that took the key observations of the thematic discussions to focus on the way forward for improving the healthcare infrastructure to maximise the reach of healthcare services in India.

In his Keynote Oration, Prof. M. S. Swaminathan focused on the need for effective application of technology for the common benefit, calling attention to the Grameen Gyan Abhiyan (Village Knowledge Movement) initiative supported by the Government of India, which aims to create village gyan (knowledge) choupals (centres), saying that the key components of these centres are connectivity, content, capacity-building, inclusion and providing solutions.

Chaired by HOSMAC India Pvt. Ltd. Director for Technology Mr. Rajeev Pradhan, the thematic session on Telemedicine had two speakers - Dr. L S Satyamurthy of the Indian Space Research Organisation and Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai. Both speakers focused on the various factors that come into play in using telemedicine to reach healthcare services to remote and scattered rural areas of the country.

The session on Health Management Information System, chaired by Additional Director-General Dr. S K Das from the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India had presentations by National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC) Adviser for Monitoring, Dr. Sundeep Sahay and by K.K. Panchal, Joint Director, D & E Cell, Commission of Health, Medical Services and Medical Education, Government of Gujarat. The successes in Gujarat and Kerala notwithstanding, the implementation of HMIS presents enormous challenges in terms of human skills, structure and coding of the databases, standards, and multiplicity of information needs, among others.

The session on Geographical Information System (GIS), chaired by National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC) Executive Director Dr. T. Sundararaman, had presentations by Dr. S. Sabesan, Deputy Director (Sr.Gr.), Chief, Environmental Sciences & HRD, Vector Control Research Centre of the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) andVishawajeet Ringe, Technical Director, Health Informatics Division, National Informatics Centre (NIC). Dr Sabesan spoke on use of GIS in mapping vector-borne diseases while Mr Ringe spoke on the mapping of government-run health facilities for effective management.

The key observations at the concluding panel discussion were that -

	IT must be seen as a tool and not a solution: IT must be applied locally and applied effectively so that it becomes widespread.
	Systems development is required to effectively encourage application, and to optimise and make effective quality healthcare.
	Application of technology effectively will grow with the development of viable business models to support this initiative.
	The focus on public health should not be restricted to clinical health issues: the focus should be on public health at the community level.
	Plans for scaling up should be designed at the start of the initiative: too much is made of pilot studies or trials.
	On MIS, the government should give guidelines and not be prescriptive.
	Monitoring of the public health system must be strengthened, particularly the monitoring of staffing and systems, especially in the rural areas.

HOSMAC India Pvt. Ltd. Director for Public Health Dr. J N Srivastava ended the conference with a vote of thanks to all panellists, participants, organisers as well as the partners.