Karnataka Health Minister Proposes Single-Window System for approving Private Hospitals, increase tenure of validity

Bengaluru: Putting emphasis on the need for patient-centric and hospital-centric healthcare system, the Health Minister of Karnataka K Sudhakar on Saturday said that the government is contemplating to implement a single-window process for providing approvals to private hospitals.

He also expressed his wish for the growth of mid-sized hospitals with a capacity of around 100 beds and assured to urge the Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai to increase the tenure of approval to three years.

The Health Minister was speaking at the Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes association's (PHANA) 3rd National Health Summit. "Large hospital chains are growing currently, but I would like to see mid-sized hospitals with a capacity of around 100 beds grow. I Do understand that there are some bottlenecks such as annual renewals. I will speak to our Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai to try to make it a single-window process and increase the time period to three years," the Minister said, as reported by ANI.

He said Karnataka can only become a wealthy state if it becomes a healthy state. Sudhakar said the government will take measures to curb red-tapism as we firmly believe in promoting ease of doing business.

During the occasion, Sudhakar also stressed upon the use of technology in healthcare as he pointed out that the state has altogether 3,000-4,000 healthcare startups.

He also emphasized on transformation in the healthcare sector and opined that healthcare should be shifted from doctor-centric to patient-centric and hospital-centric to home-centric.

"In the current world, we are seeing a massive rise in new technology such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. There are new tools that allow us to make incredibly accurate diagnoses which will help provide effective treatment in a timely manner," added the Health Minister.

"Private hospitals should be transparent in billing, and should share patients' e-health records as big data is important in developing government schemes," he further mentioned.

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As per the latest media report by Deccan Herald, opining that the association should engage with the government systematically and methodically, the President of PHANA, Dr. Prasanna H M said "Private healthcare sector is the biggest employment generator in India. We need to create a system where the government will call the industry for deliberations on budget and policy matters."

Speaking on this, the founder of HCG Enterprises Dr. B S Ajaikumar pointed out that private healthcare in India was not getting recognition despite providing 75 per cent of healthcare in the country. He also opined that the private sector should form a strong lobby and collect and publicise data on the outcomes of their work

He further stressed on healthcare being focused on '4 Ps' - Personalized, Predictive, Preventive and Participatory. He added that "we must move away from the '5th P' which is Pills."

"I urge PHANA to look into this issue to ensure that digital medical records are made available to the government. This is because, unless we have adequate data, the government cannot come up with effective health programs both at the state and national levels. Healthcare should transform from being doctor-centric towards being patient-centric and from hospital-centric to home-centric," Sudhakar said.

The Minister said the state government has screened 60 per cent of the population for Non-communicable diseases (NCDs). He said, "NCDs are a big threat today and every 4th person has diabetes today. We do not have a large data pool on this. We see a rise in NCDs such as hypertension, diabetes and cancer are on the rise. This is the reason Karnataka has taken up the task of doing mass screenings to develop a data pool."

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