Radiologist Dr Harsh Mahajan takes charge as new NATHEALTH President

Assuming charge as NATHEALTH President, Dr Harsh Mahajan said, "The pandemic has pushed us towards realizing the immense importance of establishing a robust healthcare ecosystem in India. It has also created enormous opportunities for the sector to foster collective efforts to find solutions to the challenges that are there in front of us. Greater investment both from the public and private sector will play a pivotal role and will also unlock several new opportunities to strengthen our Hon'ble PMs goal of an Atmanirbhar Bharat. The need of the hour is to sustain the momentum, build equity in healthcare, support the Government on infrastructure, and work cohesively towards improving patient outcomes in a cost-effective manner. With the Government placing health at high priority and announcing increased outlay in the 2021 budget, I believe the path for a new India is set, and NATHEALTH will be in a much stronger position to reframe the healthcare narrative in coordination with our key stakeholders and partners."

"The next 5 years are crucial for the Indian Healthcare industry for improving the quality of healthcare to ensure we are future-ready to deal with any medical emergency. Efforts made by the sector in harnessing local manufacturing capabilities and vaccines has placed India on the global map. NATHEALTH will continue to advocate for innovative partnership models to build a modern 21st-century universal healthcare delivery model in India," Dr Mahajan added.

The newly elected NATHEALTH leadership team also included other senior industry luminaries namely, Dr Shravan Subramanyam, President & CEO, GE Healthcare India & South Asia and Managing Director, Wipro GE Healthcare as Senior Vice President, NATHEALTH; Dr Ashutosh Raghuvanshi, Managing Director & CEO, Fortis Healthcare as Vice President, NATHEALTH; Ameera Shah, Managing Director, Metropolis Healthcare as Secretary, NATHEALTH, and Sunil Thakur, Partner, Quadria Capital as Treasurer, NATHEALTH.

Siddhartha Bhattacharya, Secretary-General, NATHEALTH will continue to head NATHEALTH secretariat while lending support to the leadership team, working towards the goal of making NATHEALTH, a platform which will provide opportunities for the sector to engage, collaborate and devise solutions for the long-standing challenges.

Dr Shravan Subramanyam, Senior Vice President, NATHEALTH commented, "As we are now grappling with the aftermaths of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, we need to focus on scaling many of the structural challenges. PPP has the potential to be the key driver to make the Indian healthcare ecosystem self-reliant and address the challenges. We can assess best practices from countries having strong healthcare systems and adapt what is feasible with an aim to bring some path-breaking ideas to re-image the future of the health sector in India, NATHEALTH will continue to connect to the best of the minds in the healthcare sector to amplify its unified voice to shape the healthcare narrative towards achieving the Universal Health Coverage. Our larger goal is to ensure that, no one in India is deprived of healthcare services, even in the farthest corner of the country."

Dr Ashutosh Raghuvanshi, Vice President, NATHEALTHsaid, "The pandemic has been a catalyst to reimagine and rebuild the very foundation of the Indian healthcare ecosystem. With India being poised as the next innovation hub for the world, it is imperative for the government and private sector to join hands for a renewed focus on public health, hospital service delivery, patient care and diagnostics. Digital enabled healthcare services will be the driving force to establish an integrated service delivery model that provides value-based care while also improving accessibility. NATHEALTH will continue to focus on uniting the industry and facilitating public-private partnerships. Our common and ultimate aim is to provide world-class healthcare to the masses at affordable prices thereby achieving UHC in India.

Ameera Shah, who took charge as Secretary of NATHEALTH said, "We have made significant progress in diagnostics over the last one year and this has helped us to move forward towards an efficient medical ecosystem while addressing existing challenges in testing and screening. Public-Private Partnership and collaboration between key industry stakeholders is imperative to achieve the holistic goals of Universal Health Coverage. NATHEALTH will continue to provide a collaborative platform to facilitate dialogues to establish a value-based proposition to ensure last-mile healthcare delivery."

Sunil Thakur, Treasurer, NATHEALTH said, "The healthcare industry needs support for business recovery in view of the headwinds it faced due to the pandemic. With a significant amount of learning and experience of successful collaborative models to fight the pandemic, this could be one chance for us to explore and drive Public-Private Partnerships in healthcare in a big way. NATHEALTH will work on a priority basis to suggest commercially viable healthcare financing models that align national and state priorities of offering outcome-based quality and affordable healthcare to every Indian citizen."

Also Read: NATHEALTH 7th Annual Summit: Healthcare leaders to envision Indian healthcare ecosystem future in post COVID e