28 January, 2016
The third “Thinking Social” roundtable was organised under the aegis of Tata Social Enterprise Challenge (TSEC) 2015-16, by IIM Calcutta Innovation Park (IIMCIP) in association with the Tata group. The theme of the Roundtable was on “Healthcare” and this event was supported by Coaching Foundation India Limited (CFI). This thematic Roundtable included two interactive panel discussions – one focusing on Quality, Access and Affordability and the other focusing on Leadership in the Healthcare domain.
The speakers for the day comprised eminent entrepreneurs, investors, domain experts and policy makers who have rich experience in the Healthcare sector in India. The audience (a strong presence of 50 participants) comprised of industry leaders, academia, entrepreneurs and investors focused on the healthcare domain.
In the inaugural session, Mr Mali Mahilngam from the Chennai Chapter of IIM Calcutta Alumni introduced the theme and shared with the audience the objective of this roundtable.
The first panel discussion on the theme – Access, Affordability and Quality of Healthcare – was moderated by Mr Sameer Mehta, Director at Dr. Mehta’s hospitals. Sameer set the context by illustrating the status of healthcare in our country and requested the panelists to share their insights on the challenges and opportunities that exist in this domain.
Dr P Umanath – Additional Secretary, Govt. of Tamil Nadu spoke about how Government is addressing the access issue in a phased way. The first phase was quantitative in approach while the second phase was on ensuring quality in the hospitals. He further said, “Tamil Nadu has the highest accessible networks in the entire country with 1050 Primary centers, 300 first level healthcare centers, 300 secondary level healthcare centers and 43 institutions in the state are attached to 20 medical colleges.”
Dr Sumanth Raman, Head-Healthcare Innovation, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd spoke about how technology and smart devices can help in improving quality, access and affordability of healthcare services. He said, “Healthcare delivery is radically changing and is a few years away from the tipping point where technology will start to significantly drive the healthcare delivery.” He also urged the Government to facilitate implementation and usage of technology enabled healthcare solutions like telemedicine and tele-radiology.
Mr Ponarul A.P., Startup Scout at Unitus Seed Fund, spoke from an investor’s point of view and discussed what they look for when they invest in healthcare startups. He mentioned that innovation not just in technology, but also from a business model perspective, is important from the funding perspective and gave examples of startups where the fund has invested. He concluded by saying, “We look for low cost diagnostics and monitoring solutions where we see how technology has been leveraged and how does it reaches the bottom of the pyramid in terms of access.”
Mr Arun Venkatesan, Senior Advisor at Villgro spoke about the user-centric design in the healthcare sector where one has to understand purchasing and dissemination patterns and work with what’s available. He said, “There is a great opportunity for startups and enterprises if you can tweak your delivery model and align it to the buying patterns and functioning patterns of the government.” He also spoke about the need to bridge the gap from the policy perspective and the service delivery perspective.
In the concluding session, the moderator requested the panelists to comment on the top priority (out of access, affordability and quality) in this domain and a majority identified Quality of healthcare as the critical success factor.
The second Panel Discussion was around the theme of leadership in the healthcare industry. Mr R Ramraj, Senior Advisor at Elevar Equity, moderated the Panel discussion and introduced the topic by commenting that managing healthcare enterprises is more complex than it appears and it demands specialized skills. He requested all the Panelists to share their experiences and insights on the theme. The panelists for this session were Dr Arjun Rajagopalan, Trustee & Medical Director at Sundaram Medical Foundation, Mr RD Thulasiraj, Director Operations at Aravind Eye Care, Madurai and Mr Nishith Mohanty, Global HR Head at Manipal Group, Bangalore. They shared case studies from their organizations and remarked that quality of leadership is a critical success factor for healthcare organizations.
The Q&A round witnessed good participation from the audience. There were many significant issues discussed and addressed by the audience and the panelists.
The roundtable ended with a valedictory address and vote of thanks from IIMCIP and CFI.
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