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

New Delhi:  With an objective to bring the healthcare industry together to engage, collaborate and deliberate, to chart a forward path together and emerge resilient in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, NATHEALTH-Healthcare Federation of India, is organizing the 7th NATHEALTH Annual Summit on the theme of 'Indian Health System Expansion in Post-COVID Era.

'The 2-day virtual summit to be held on 25th and 26th March 2021 will bring senior Government representatives, top industry leaders, and sectoral experts from both the private and public sector in India together to forge strong partnerships and identify areas of cooperation with discussions and presentations on short term and long-term focus areas.

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Covid-19 unleashed an unprecedented health crisis completely disrupting the healthcare ecosystem. Key segments like hospitals, diagnostics, medical tourism have been severely affected because of successive lockdowns, dip in footfalls, and postponement of elective surgeries. As we hopefully come to the end of this pandemic, we are faced at an inflection point in the history of healthcare in the country.

Our challenges are multifold from nursing the sector back to good financial health, to plugging the multiple infrastructure gaps that have been laid bare by the pandemic. At the same time, there is immense opportunity to re-imagine this sector with Digital technologies having helped us accelerate the adoption of remote healthcare delivery and Indian manufacturers have risen to the challenge to not only meet the needs of the nation from vaccines to diagnostic tests.

The virus was agnostic in its effects in terms of its incidence amongst the rich and poor of the country and has only reinforced that Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is the need of the hour.

The annual summit provides a platform to reemphasize the fact that we need to find solutions to the barriers of access to quality healthcare, building essential infrastructure for patients, harness technology, address the shortage of skilled workforce and medical professionals and find ways to improve patient outcomes. The theme, "Indian Health System Expansion in Post-COVID Era" will assess approaches and strategies to arrive at solutions around the potential of the Indian healthcare sector to attract investments for building a modern 21st-century universal healthcare delivery model that delivers affordable excellence.

Calling out to key industry leaders to join the summit sessions,Ms. Preetha Reddy, President, NATHEALTH and Executive Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals said, "NATHEALTH has been successfully organizing annual summits to address key issues significant for the Indian Healthcare ecosystem and engage with all stakeholders across sectors to leverage innovation and technology to improve access and quality of care.

Health is now a global priority and an imperative for health systems around the world is to rebuild themselves to be much resilient and robust in readiness for medical crises in future. The 2021Summit will focus on meaningful conversations catalyzing investments, gearing up for digital healthcare, ideating to expand health infrastructure, methods to leverage the power of partnerships for skilling and medical education. Health is an individual and collective responsibility and everyone must sign up for the summit.

The 7th Annual NATHEALTH Summit is a chance for all stakeholders, including the media to witness how partnerships can chart a way forward for streamlining and strengthening the Indian health system in varied ways."

Dr Harsh Mahajan, Senior Vice President, NATHEALTH and founder, Chief Radiologist, Mahajan Imagingsaid, "The 7th NATHEALTH Annual Summit will focus on pertinent aspects of the financing of healthcare and how it can provide the momentum to achieve Universal Health Coverage. NATHEALTH is providing a platform for experts across the healthcare sector to discuss new paradigms in healthcare financing, why patient centricity and quality care should be at the forefront and how India can move towards a value-based framework.

The summit will help in engaging the industry in thought-provoking ideas for greater collaboration amongst all healthcare stakeholders, while also exploring varied pricing models to ensure viability and scale without compromising quality."

Dr Ashutosh Raghuvanshi, Secretary, NATHEALTH; MD and CEO, Fortis Healthcare said," During the pandemic, while we saw countries with the best of healthcare facilities challenged to manage it, we also saw what can be achieved through collaborative efforts. Collectively, we were able to develop new, advanced testing and treatment solutions in the shortest possible time.

The NATHEALTH Summit 2021 is a vital opportunity for all of us to address critical gaps and needs not only for India but for Bharat. Infrastructure expansion, increasing access and services in tier 2/3 geographies, supporting small hospitals and health centers to build equity in healthcare will be some of the key focus areas. I am sure the Summit will enable enriching discussions to help chart a strong healthcare trajectory for India."

Expressing his happiness, Dr. Shravan Subramanyam, President & CEO, GE Healthcare, South Asia, said, "Healthcare is often seen as a discreet series of interventions, whether it is prevention, screening, diagnosis, and therapeutics. But the one tool that threads everything together is digital health. The NATHEALTH annual summit is the right platform for stakeholders from the Government and the private sector to discuss how digital can transform healthcare in India."

The Summit will focus on 5 critical and most relevant themes for today - catalyzing the investment cycle in healthcare post COVID19; strategies for financing healthcare to accelerate momentum for achieving Universal Health Coverage; leveraging Digital health and Med Tech for improving access to and quality of care; reimagining health infrastructure development over the next 5 years for India and Bharat and bridging the demand-supply gap in skilling. Overall, it promises to be an exciting event that will unlock potential opportunities for businesses to network, collaborate through industry tie-ups on corporate partnerships and exploration of new business leads.

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