Hyderabad ,20th October 2022 :Cloudphysician, a healthcare company focused on bringing quality critical care within the reach of every patient, wherever they may be. It blends modern technology with quality healthcare, which helps increase the number of ICU beds that an intensivist can reach thereby improving efficiency and affordability.Cloudphysician conducted the second issue of Futures Program on 14th Oct 22, where select intensivists across India got a sneak peek into what ICUs of 2030 will look like in India and how clinicians need to go beyond the horizons of clinical medicine to adopt technology and enhance the quality of critical care delivery.
The speakers included clinical, technology, and product leaders building world-class products to help clinicians with operational efficiency and improved quality.
It was a 90 mins interactive session on how to time travel (into the future) – the need to scale up and give quality care through technology, and why intensivists need to be at the core of this evolution in critical care.
The challenge and the solution:
There is a trade-off between quality, accessibility, and cost-effectiveness in the current healthcare scenario. Focusing on any of these might compromise the other in a traditional set- up. Such iron triangles can be brought down only by disruptive innovations. Cloudphysician’s solution has disrupted the high-acuity critical care space by making the highest-quality care accessible to patients cost-effectively.
The future program panelists included :Mr.Dr. Dhruv Joshi – Co-Founder & CEO ( US Board Certified Internal Medicine, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine) Dr. Dileep Raman – Co- Founder & Chief Healthcare (US Board Certified Internal Medicine, Pulmonary and Critical & Sleep Medicine) Dhruv Sud – Director, Technology Proving World- Class EMRs can be built in India. Dr. Kanika Gulati – Director (Product Building to help clinicians with operational efficiency & Improved quality) Dr. Partha Saradhi Ghosh –MD, IDCCM ( Anesthesiology, Critical Care Intensivist, refining the market viability of quality centric care)Dr. Sharath Patel – MD, FNB (Anesthesiology, Critical Care Intensivist, Client success leader for 50 ICU across India)Dr. Sandesh Kumar , MD, FNB, IDIC (Anesthesiology, Critical Care Intensivist & Physician Product Manager)
The topics discussed at the futures program includes:
- Can Sci-Fi become Reality?
Technology is an enabler that amplifies disruptive innovations. Rapid technological progress has opened up possibilities considered science fiction until yesterday. What we believe as science fiction today (like teleporting or mind-reading) may become realities tomorrow. Unfortunately, healthcare delivery has lagged than other fields in leveraging the full potential of available technology.
Technology can be a leveller in delivering quality healthcare, especially in developing countries where we have diverse settings. Technology using existing hardware can make healthcare more efficient through which greater access, lower costs, and better outcomes
- Data at fingertips
Stats says that information was missing in 81% of the clinical encounters. As a result, healthcare providers are grappling with issues like clunky data, medical errors due to insufficient data, lack of collaboration, and lack of standardized clinical workflows. Other fields like finance, manufacturing, and e-commerce have solved similar problems around data, collaboration, and workflows.
Healthcare providers need to adopt one system to lower the barriers to information and patient data handling and to make informed clinical decisions.
In an era where patients are empowered, clinicians should have information at their fingertips to deliver empowered care.
- Technology Augmenting medical experts
Apart from fixing these fundamental problems, healthcare providers must be innovative in leveraging technologies that can significantly improve patient outcomes: automated video-monitoring, early detection of seizures or respiratory distresses, anomalies in heart rates or urine output, etc. In addition, they must demand innovations like intelligent wearables that send signals to the clinician’s phones and use modern nano-technology for diagnosis and treatment.
The user is the best person to design a solution. Clinicians have to sit with technology and devise a solution of how to make the workflow software efficient.
- Quality: How to achieve this at scale?
While technology remains the most significant cause for disruption, several other elements will contribute to the success of a healthcare provider. For example, the last two decades have seen minor changes in critical care treatment. But mortality in ICUs has reduced significantly in centers where there has been a rigorous implementation of standards, protocols, and quality initiatives like hand hygiene and infection control. In addition, the healthcare industry has adopted many quality initiatives from the automobile and airline industries. Cross-industry adoption of best practices will be critical for the success of quality healthcare regardless of geographical boundaries. Tech-enabled quality initiatives have no boundaries, and we drive change that is lasting and impactful.
- Empowered care for Empowered patients:
Patients are becoming more empowered with the democratization of information and ease of real-time communication across geographies. In addition, the expectations of quality and transparency from the patients & their families are increasing, so much in critical care treatment will match that of other services like hospitality and travel. Healthcare providers should seek to align with the increasing empowerment of patients, the high quality and service expectations, and adopt technology quickly so they will be ready for the ICU of 2030.
The future of critical care:
- Without barriers
- Patient-centric
- Quality driven
- Supported by technology
- Empowered care = Empowered patients + Empowered providers
