'We Need Digital Approach, Data Intelligence And Patient-centric Culture'

Sanjay Joshi, CTO, Life Sciences and Healthcare, Dell EMC, elucidates how linking Aadhaar data can give better healthcare outcome to India, in an interview with Prathiba Raju

- Prathiba Raju

What is the role of data and how will it elevate the Indian healthcare system?

There is a lot of development going on in the Indian healthcare space. Particularly, Aadhaar, the nation-wide biometric card, which even includes retina scans, is an interesting and robust set of data. Right now, if the government actually wants to understand the national scale of diverse health issues be it maternal or child health, air and water quality issues, it can analyse the Aadhaar data. To begin with, every state government should monitor these data closely. 70 percent of people reside in rural India and with one doctor per 2000 citizens, the Indian healthcare system can he helped by digital approach, data intelligence and a patient-centric culture.

Engineering-based Dell EMC, Centers of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru and Pune, are providing healthcare data and cloud solutions.

How to combat NCDs via technology and what does Dell EMC offer?

Rising incidents of lifestyle related, non-communicable diseases like cardiovascular disease (CVD), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a great challenge. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), an independent global health research center at the University of Washington, CVD is the top killer in India. However, the second largest killer is COPD and the largest source of this is air pollution and smoking. We need to address these issues with technology and growing pool of digitally-empowered patients. The government is working on smart cities, but I would say that without healthy cities we cannot have smart cities.