The HIMSS India Annual Conference and Exhibition, held recently in Bengaluru, brought together industries, government, hospitals, and consumers under a single platform. The two-day event was attended by a galaxy of speakers, around 200 delegates from hospitals, healthcare IT, government, and industry bodies with sessions ranging from Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Analytics, Robotics, Digitisation, EMR adoption, Startups’ Masterclass and CIO Conclave. The conference also had an exhibition area with a special focus on innovation and startups. Mitra, the robot from Invento, also graced the occasion with memento distribution and delegate interactions.
Ishaq Quadri, Secretary HIMSS APAC India Chapter, mentioned that HIMSS is a platform at a global level which combines industries, government, hospitals, and the consumers – all the four stake holders together. Professor Rajendra Pratap Gupta, Advisor, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, graced the event as the Chief Guest.
Devi Prasad Shetty, Chairman and Founder, Narayana Health spoke on the vision for transforming healthcare through IT. Dr Shetty mentioned that to provide life-saving healthcare to the world, technology innovation and volumes can be some reasons among several.
K Chandrasekhar, CEO, Forus Health, in his session, spoke about the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare and how Forus Health is democratising eyecare with its retinal imaging screening devices. Whereas, Rajesh Kuppuswamy, healthcare industry leader for SAP Labs spoke about ‘Leveraging technology to improve lives.
J P Dwivedi, CIO, Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute & Research Centre, spoke about the current challenges in healthcare IT, rising expectations from CIOs and IT professionals, hierarchy of needs, and measuring digital maturity of hospitals.
Dinesh Seemakurty, CEO of Stasis Labs, took the opportunity to explain about ‘Smart remote continuous monitoring: a paradigm shift.’ Later in the sessions Professor Rajendra Pratap Gupta spoke about ‘Policy roadmap on healthcare reforms and digital health.’
He also mentioned the story of how was HIMSS introduced to India.
Mr. Shireesh Sahai, CEO Wolters Kluwer India, spoke on the topic of ‘Improving Clinical Outcomes Through Digital Transformation’.
The event also featured Masterclass on innovation and startups – smart solutions to perennial problems. Manish Singhal, Founding Partner at pi Ventures; Vaibhav Agarwal, Partner, Light Speed; Geeta Manjunath, CEO, Niramai; and Balaji Vishwanathan, CEO, Invento, participated in this session.
Annie Matthew, President, HIMSS, India, explained about what HIMSS is and how this platform is being used for knowledge sharing.
Harkesh Dabas, Country Director, Clinton Health Access Initiative spoke about public health and its importance. He also shedded light on the projects he is working on and how they are useful in prevention of disease in the society. According to him, the real problem is needed to be curtailed using the right technology.
Dr Vivek Sahi, Girish Koppaar, and, Manoj Paul discussed ‘State healthcare analytics in India – an objective Survey.’ This session was conducted by HIMSS in order to do a reality check on how data is being captured and utilised. The survey also concluded that more tools are needed to ease the input of the data.
In a panel discussion, Arvind Sivaramakrishnan, CIO, Apollo Hospitals; Rajendra Kshirsagar, CIO, Meitra Hospital; and, Ashokkan S, CIO, Columbia Asia Hospital, discussed ‘IT transformation challenges and solutions.’
In the next round of session, Rohit Kumar Pandey, CEO, Sigtuple, took the opportunity and spoke about AI, precision, medicine and Machine Learning (ML) – the future of service delivery. Pandey mentioned how AI and ML are going to be the future of healthcare.
Dr Rohit from Manipal Hospitals discussed about ‘AI in action, live and now – the oncology case study.’ In the session he spoke about how technology and software is assisting in oncology. He also mentioned about dealing with IBM Watson in oncology.
Ravi Jagnnathan, MD, KrypC Tech, discussed on ‘Demystifying Blockchain and its role in healthcare.’ He discussed about how Bloackchain can transform healthcare. He also spoke about the global challenges in the implication and its solution.
Ishaq Quadri, as a representative of HIMSS, India board talked about ‘Transforming India’s healthcare IT: The HIMSS roadmap.’ Nitiraj Gandhi, Joint Secretary, HIMSS India concluded the event with vote of thanks.
