Overcoming challenges

The Indian IT industry has been responsive in understanding and responding the complex needs of healthcare services. With advent of IT, hospitals at various locations can have connectivity and be controlled from a single site. This also reduces the administrative cost. All the information can be stored at one single location and can be retrieved as and when required at required locations. According to Ashokkan VRS, Group CIO, Columbia Asia Hospitals, “What we should stress upon is the requirement of standardised processes, governing regulations, clinical notes documentation and formats, ancillary ecosystem standardisation such as insurance claim processes and a national registry data submission. A clarity and acceptability of a harmonised environment among the clinical fraternity is of utmost importance.”

Aravind Sitaraman
President, Inclusive Growth, Cisco

Present scenario

Compared to the earlier decade, it is observed that hospital owners and entrepreneurs have started recognising the potential of IT in healthcare system. “However, this adoption has been at a slow pace,” adds Sitaraman. It is observed that healthcare system generally uses less IT than other industries, but experts suggest that providers are increasing their investments. “The extent of IT and the types of IT tools deployed varies from one institution to other,” informs Ashokkan. It is essential to have clear objectives and deploy the right model. “The IT objectives should primarily focus on assisting staff to deliver best patient care,” avers Ashokkan. “With the right technology and right deployment model, IT has the propensity to bring specialist care to rural population at affordable prices,” says Sitaraman. “Automation of processes brings about huge efficiencies in supporting physicians in delivering correct decisions in patient care.

“Data and analysis available from diagnosis in lab and radiology helps clinicians in planning prognosis for a patient. Availability of automated medical records can ‘throw up’ similarity in patterns thereby helping clinicians to make decisions. This ensures that patient data is available to our clinical staff at all times including emergency. Besides being a huge safety, the IT factor reduces medical errors, which otherwise might occur in a manual system. The increased safety by incorporation of reminders and alerts in hospital information system manages right dose at correct time and for the right patient. Such systems provide immediate information to healthcare professionals. All these ultimately help lowering costs to the hospital in an indirect way. This is true for all other patient support care areas such as pharmacy, radiology and operation theatres,” says Ashokkan.

“We have technology in place that governs the workflow and information flow ultimately helping us to deliver excellent patient care. Apart from the enterprise application software, there are other software that help to manage our lab and radiology workflows, which are tightly interconnected with the main enterprise resource planning,” he adds. “We continuously evaluate our software to eradicate information asymmetry among patients, clinicians and our administrative team. Using IT enables us to assess our operational efficiencies and brings a greater level of transparency in day-to-day management. Also, we have been able to use IT to help identify potential waste in our process flow, thereby increasing business efficiency. One of our key modules is the ‘integrated medical record system,’ which helps the doctor to view patient care notes from the very first episode to date,” says Ashokkan. According to Sitaraman, “IT by itself will not solve all healthcare crises that are looming in India. After all, technology is only the enabler or an instrument through which healthcare can be administered. Thus, we also require typical orchestrate, create, manage and incentivise the ecosystem.” Installing desired IT solutions can enable the organisation to drive the profitable growth.

Ashokkan VRS
Group CIO, Columbia Asia Hospitals

IT as enabler

“Information flow in software is considered as good as departmental communication, further helping in task execution and process continuance. For example, a case in point – interaction between the ward nurse and the pharmacy is almost instantaneous eliminating the need for manual queries through internal memos or telephone,” says Ashokkan. Technology has provided role-based access to view and update patient care information right from bed management to payment. “IT tools have enabled hospitals in its goal to deliver safer, speedier and efficient healthcare to our patients,” he adds. The biggest advantage of a cloud-based system is the lower cost advantage. However, with any cloud-based deployment the first and foremost worry comes with information security. The software industry is aware and is trying to iron out this important aspect, which will make cloud-based systems more usable. In the current scenario, use of IT solutions is confined to urban cities and not rural areas. Rural population still visits nearest cities for primary, secondary and tertiary treatments. Various initiatives such as telemedicine, mhealth, eICU are some of the examples of the role played by IT to extend reach to the distant areas.

“There are solutions which use high definition video-based system connecting a remote doctor to villages and rural areas in a secure manner through a cloud. Such solutions are being successfully implemented and have contributed to the reduction in maternal mortality and infant mortality rates,” says Sitaraman. Women and children form over half of the patients who benefits by use of such system. “We have used such infrastructure to educate pregnant women and social workers on pregnancy, home nutrition and first hour emergencies. The objective is to use technology to help bridging down the rural-urban gap so as to integrate all population into mainstream economy and transform communities by providing them access to basic amenities such as education, healthcare, public services and market place,” suggest Sitaraman. “Currently, telemedicine is helping in easing out the processes and time spent by patients for pre-surgical and post-surgical consults. It is expected to have a full-fledged primary care delivery through telemedicine as the next wave,” agrees Ashokkan. Another promising arena is mhealth, which many believe to be the future for the healthcare industry. “It requires a holistic thought process in actualising the concept. A bi-directional constant engagement is required for mhealth initiatives to be a success,” suggests Ashokkan. Thus, adoption of IT has revolutionised healthcare delivery and there are ample opportunities ahead to continue such acceptance. 

Hardik Ashar

(hardik.ashar@network18publishing.com) 

Androgenic alopecia also popularly known as male pattern baldness is a condition in which there is androgen mediated progressive miniaturisation and loss of genetically susceptible hair follicles in an individual.

“Due to androgenic alopecia, the quality of the hair suffers. It shrinks in due course of time and becomes thin. The thinner the texture of the hair becomes – the chances of breakage increases which in turn lead to hair loss,” said Dr Poswal.

Hair transplantation is an artistic, surgical redistribution of the permanent hair follicles taken from the donor areas viz., the back and sides of the head, to the balding areas of the scalp. But in extreme cases, beard hair and body hair are now, being used as a donor.

“Recently I treated a 29-year-old male patient with moderate hair loss he wanted to go for hair restoration surgery. When he came to me he had already underwent a scalp expansion and flap procedure with some other doctor. But due to mistakes in the flap procedure and in patient selection, the results were not aesthetically acceptable,” said Dr. Poswal.

“The procedure also depleted the scalp donor reserves making this a difficult, if not impossible, repair case. A combination of mostly beard and chest donor hair was used in this patient to augment the donor hair supply. A different approach to hairline design was also used to blend the new hair growth with the previous scalp flaps,” he added.

The main objective of this case was to use body and beard donor hair to augment the donor hair supply, and to design a new hairline that blends the new hair growth with the previous scalp flaps to give a natural look.

These surgeries take place under proper aseptic precaution. Local anesthesia is injected before these procedures making them painless.

Explaining the procedure doctor said, “These follicular units were kept in chilled ringer’s lactate (4° C). Recipient sites were made in the pre-marked anaesthetised recipient area on the scalp, followed by the systematic placement of the beard and chest hair grafts in those sites.

At the end of the procedure antiseptic dressing was applied over the recipient as well as the donor areas. The dressing was removed from the recipient area after 18 hours. The patient was put on antibiotics for five days post-operatively.”

Hair restoration plays a key role in improving self confidence, reducing anxiety and increasing chances for success in social situations during everyday life.

Speaking on the occasion, S Ganesh Prasad Director Ultrasound, GE Healthcare South Asia said, “Access to advanced diagnostic technology can make a huge difference in early detection and treatment of diseases and conditions. However, proliferation of such technologies has been dismal in India due to its high cost and low awareness. Mission Healthier India is an example of how we are at work for a healthier India. Our Mission will allow clinicians and public to experience GE’s advanced and affordable technologies at their doorsteps and learn how they can put these technologies to use for saving precious lives”.

The Mission aims to introduce high end technology to hospitals, nursing homes and clinics in 50 towns of Tamil Nadu at their doorsteps and to create awareness on the usage of technology in early detection of diseases and enablement of saving lives.  The Mission also aims to create awareness amongst public through technology experience and information dissemination. Through this mission, GE Healthcare hopes to cover 5000 clinicians and 1,00,000 people in the 2 month tour of Tamil Nadu before embarking on similar tours in rest of India.

The Mission Healthier India provides a closer view of technologies that can aid three key care areas that small towns and villages are challenged with – women and maternal infant health, cardiac diseases and critical care. The mother and infant care technologies include ultrasound imaging systems for diagnosing health of baby and mother during pregnancy, infant care technologies like Embrace for providing mother’s womb like warmth, Lullaby LED Phototherapy system for treating neonatal jaundice, MAC series of portable, battery operated ECG systems for early detection of cardiac diseases and Critical care tools required for monitoring and supporting critically ill patients, reducing infections in ICUs etc. Experts from GE Healthcare will provide hands-on demonstrations on usage of these advanced medical technologies.

Experience has shown that an entire range of disability issues such as the causes of disability, care, rehabilitation, empowerment, mainstreaming through education, employment, health care, and transportation – wait to be practically resolved. The seminar focused on the importance of implementing accessibility standards and complying to different accessibilities laws for disabled people.

Addressing the gathering, Guest of Honor, Rtn. Sanjay Khanna, District Governor (Nominee 2014-15), Rotary Viklang Kendra said, “India alone has more than 70 million disabled people and it is an imperative that assistive and accessible needs are made available to people with disabilities in order to create an inclusive environment for them.”

Speaking at the occasion, Dr Subramanian, Chairman, Rotary Viklang Kendra and Senior Consultant- Urology, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals said, “We need to have an inclusive understanding and positive thoughts towards those who are differently-abled. This gathering allowed us to bring the needs, concerns and rights of the people with disability into the limelight. We as the Rotarian family(106 years old) have been working over the years to spearhead this cause by providing people with disabilities the much-desired support and serving them in their pursuit of social and economic development by imparting vocational guidance and arranging proper placements.”

 Sachin Chamariya, a 22 years old young man who is suffering from quadriplegic (paralysis of all four limbs with bowel and bladder dysfunction) after sustaining spinal cord injury, and Javed Abidi, who was born with an abnormality as a result of which he was bound to a wheelchair at the age of 15 years, shared their experiences and the moments that turned their life around.

“I am overwhelmed to stand here and share my life’s struggles with everyone. 8th June 2008 was the day that changed my life completely. I was 17 years old when I met with an accident which left me paralysed. But with all my determination and zeal to win against the odds, I have learnt to live with confidence and dignity. I feel that every disabled person should lead their own lives, instead of depending upon others,” said Sachin.

Javed talked about his experience and thanked Rotary Viklang Kendra for helping people with disability become self-reliant. Javed Abidi was in charge of the Disability wing at Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and he drafted the Indian Disability Act of 1995. Javed spoke about the capabilities and strengths of people with disability and why they should be employed and live the life with dignity. “Disabled people have a lot of potential. They are just as capable as anyone else and have no drawbacks. The only factor preventing them from realising their potential is a lack of opportunities,” he said.

Striving for the best

The management ensures best care with focussed diagnosis procedure to avoid unnecessary tests and financial burden on the patients, which begins with a good understanding of patient history and thorough physical examination. All care providers follow SOPs based on internationally recognised and benchmarked practices. “The plan of care is guided by clinical pathways and clinical practice guidelines, which define when and which investigations need to be performed. We also have treatment packages for various procedures with fixed costs that cover all required tests,” informs Dr Anupam Sibal, Director – Medical Services, Apollo Hospitals Group.

Apollo embarks on a culture of excellence, with a team of best doctors, equipped with best technology, excellent systems and support staff that helps achieve the outcomes for their patients, which are benchmarked against the best published outcomes. Speaking about keeping the moral of doctors high to excel in their respective areas, Dr Sibal says, “The outcomes are the most rewarding aspect for the doctors whereby they gain a sense of satisfaction on seeing the patients recover and this keeps their morale high. Continuous training programmes and continuing medical education keeps them abreast with the latest advances in medicine and helps them excel in their field of work.”

The institute owns a distinguished research wing, known as Apollo Hospitals Educational and Research Foundation (AHERF) that oversees research activities. The consultants undertake clinical research after approval from the institutional review board/ethics committee. AHERF supports research through research fellows and research grants. In addition, the hospital management is keen on having the best technology on the floor for delivering best outcomes for its patients and keeping its facilities safe and comfortable.

When asked about his views on universal healthcare, Dr Sibal avers, “The dream of universal healthcare needs to address the issues of universal access and affordability. The investment in the healthcare sector needs to be increased. We also need to focus on prevention to decrease the load of sickness.”

Recent additions

Apollo is the front runner in terms of introducing new technologies and leveraging the hospitals’ expertise by catching up early on medical innovation. In the recent past, the institute has launched three new technologies/devices in its premises to enable its skilled workforce understand the problem and deliver more accurate solutions, and in turn minimising the mortality factor.

Robotic surgery

Robotic surgery is the next-gen wave of healthcare technology, which is gaining popularity among the doctor and patient groups. Robotic surgery results in reduced pain and scars, and by using cameras and enhanced visual effects, doctors can make the tiniest of incisions. In this system, ultraprecise tools controlled and operated by the surgeon from a console help performs the operation. Although it typically uses a laparoscopic or ‘keyhole surgery’ approach, whereby tools and a tiny video camera are inserted into the patient’s body via one or two small incisions, robot-assisted surgery improves upon conventional laparoscopic surgery by being less invasive and more efficient.

PET-MR suite

In 2013, Apollo Hospitals launched the first ever PET SUITE in India, which is an extension of PET CT-based diagnosis. The new PET MR system has resulted from the amalgamation of a state-of-heart whole body 3T MRI scanner and a high-end PET system, which has been fully integrated and precisely aligned within the same gantry. This enables us to simultaneously acquire accurate information on morphology, function and metabolism. The significance of this facility gets augmented by the deft handling and interpretive reporting by leading experts in the field.

Apollo cosmetic clinics

Another feather in cap for the landmark hospital, Apollo Cosmetic Clinics, is a dedicated centre of excellence from the renowned Apollo Hospitals Group and offers comprehensive treatments for a range of cosmetic enhancements. Cosmetic enhancement treatment, beyond being a way of aesthetic improvement, involves advanced and intricate procedures. Apollo Hospitals, India, has highly experienced specialists in cosmetic and plastic surgery, state-of-the-art infrastructure and a patient-centric ambience – ensuring world class medical attention and care. Additionally, cross speciality consultation can be done whenever needed, thanks to specialists in over 50 disciplines at Apollo Hospitals,India. It carries the backing of the Apollo Hospitals Group, a 30-year old institution of trust that has touched over a billion lives worldwide. Added to this is the reassuring back up of a multi-specialty hospital in the premises.

Dr Anupam Sibal

Treading cautiously

In times when Indian multi-specialty hospitals are trending for best-in-class infrastructure and rallying for competition to equip their facilities, Apollo is cautiously and judiciously making its move to maintain a balance between instinct-based diagnosis and adequate use of advance technology. Dr Sibal says, “Our doctors in India still practice medicine guided by their clinical acumen. Medicine has come a long way and with the myriad of diseases we deal with; machines are enablers to help finalise diagnosis as well as treat patients. The physicians first narrow down on the possible causes of illness and use advanced machines to confirm a diagnosis or for treatment when and where necessary. The doctors have become good operators of advanced machines only to ensure that the patient gets the best healthcare that technology has to offer. And the patients today do not want to take any chances either. They look for a sure shot, confirmed diagnosis that is not based on instinct alone and treatment with the best outcomes.” Apollo Hospitals participates in different government schemes such as CGHS, ESI and ECHS as well as support these schemes by sharing and submitting relevant data to the government on a regular basis. The information includes various patient details including births, deaths, certain communicable diseases and epidemics etc, which in turn helps government in devising healthcare policies.

Helping hand

In the past decade, government has launched several schemes to ensure better health and develop an economically viable healthcare network across the country. The recognition of investment in health as both a developmental imperative and a pathway has been evident in many recent initiatives ranging from the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) and a multitude of government sponsored health schemes. Commenting on these efforts and challenges associated with them Dr Sibal emphasises, “The Government of India has done much to improve the healthcare in India.India has made considerable improvement in health status of its population over the last three decades as evidenced by the improvement in health indicators. Infrastructure and manpower status has also improved with the GDP spent on health increasing. Considering the 1.2 billion population of India, it is indeed a challenging task for all the health schemes to affect the masses but India is making progress. The greatest challenge is to attract medical talent to cities other than level I. Another challenge is managing the rising costs.” 

Nikunj Sharma

(nikunj.kumar@network18publishing.com) 

Dr Vishakha Rao

Dr Vishakha Rao

HOD, Dentistry, Rockland Hospital

The reduction in curative treatments due to awareness has direct relations with the attitude, oral hygiene habits and mostly the socioeconomic status of the patients. Oral health has been neglected for long in India. According to a WHO survey, 80 per cent of Indian population suffers from periodontitis. It has been seen in several researches conducted at different community levels that the oral hygiene practices are better among the subjects in upper class than in lower.

So, in India, where the vast population still remains in lower socioeconomic status, it has been seen that even after reinforcing the importance of good oral care and prevention at all levels, dental services are utilised more in the upper socioeconomic groups. And in upper class, good oral health practices are not practiced widely yet, but the younger population is sure to show some positive results of requiring less curative treatments in the near future.

Dr Sejal Shah

Dr Sejal Shah

Dental Consultant, Dr L H Hiranandani Hospital

Preventive oral care or dentistry is a modern way of helping individuals keep a healthy oral environment. It helps to keep the teeth and its supporting tissues healthy thus minimising need for dental treatment. Some of the preventive dental care routines must include six monthly dental check-ups with thorough oral prophylaxis, diet counseling, proper oral home care routines; mechanical and chemical fluoride application, pit and fissure sealants and early detection of oral cancers (eg, taking biopsy of the precancerous lesions). Awareness about preventive dental/oral care over last couple of decades has resulted in a relative decline in curative dental procedures such as fillings, root canal treatment, gum surgeries, extractions, tooth replacement, early detection of malocclusion. However, dental care still is among the most unmet health care needs. A large number of patients still go for a dentists visit only when in pain. Traditional curative dental care is not only physically painful but also economically more painful.

Dr Julie Shahstri

Dr Julie Shahstri

Dentist, Kohinoor Hospital

Increasing awareness of dental hygiene, coupled with other preventive and curative interventions, is a comprehensive way to achieve better oral health and overall well being. Tooth decay can be reduced by using simple technology and often home-based activities to reduce everyone’s suffering. The most basic human needs including the ability to eat and drink, swallow, maintain proper nutrition, smile and communicate depends on oral health, it affects our self-esteem, performance at work etc. Increased dental health awareness has definitely resulted in reduced requirements for extensive dental treatments. More and more people are taking their dentist’s advice seriously and are allocating importance to their dental hygiene. Also, with many more people as playing an active part of the social world, the need and desire to look good, smell good and live a better quality of life has gained importance. This awareness may have reduced extensive dental treatments, but has brought forth a lot of individuals for preventive treatments. 

Editorial take

As the old saying goes, prevention is better than cure. Individuals from the upper and lower classes of society must take advantage of the widely available information and invest in better oral care as most times oral diseases can be kept under control by following simple and effective guidelines. This will in turn reduce oral disease burden, treatment costs and increase longevity of the teeth.

Pallavi Mukhopadhyay

(pallavi.mukhopadhyay@network18publishing.com) 

Prithviraj Chavan and John Rice

General Electric announced a Public Private Partnership (PPP) with the Government of Maharashtra. In a consortium which includes the Public Health Department of the Government of Maharashtra, Wipro GE Healthcare Pvt Ltd and Ensocare by Enso Group. The project will advance healthcare in the State of Maharashtra for setting up advanced diagnostic facilities at 22 Government district and women hospitals.

It will operate on a 24/7 hour basis and provide services at Government recommended rate cards for the benefit of the broader population. Orange and Yellow ‘Below Poverty Line’ (BPL) card holders will be entitled to receive free diagnostic services under the Rajiv Gandhi Jeevandayee Arogya Yojana (RGJAY) scheme at all 22 d facilities which are expected to be operational within a year. An investment of 150 crore has been made for the same.

Commenting on the new partnership, Banmali Agrawala, President & CEO GE South Asia said, “High tech diagnostic machines such as GE’s latest Channel MRI, Analog X-ray, digital Xray, Optima CT will be made available to the public, which in the long run will be both economically and socially beneficial to people of Maharashtra

Speaking on the occasion, Shri Prithviraj Chavan, Chief Minister, Government of Maharashtra said “The Government of Maharashtra is committed to providing better and affordable healthcare to its people. Today, we are on to a first of its kind, large scale modernisation of district hospitals with latest diagnostic technologies. We hope to give benefit of this PPP model to patients under Rajiv Gandhi Jeevandai Arogya Yojana Scheme in the State and also lower the costs for all categories of patients.”

The PPP agreement with Government of Maharashtra is the largest in terms of scale and includes the installation of 4 units of 64 slice CT scanners, 13 units of advance 16 slice CT scanners, 8 units of cutting edge 1.5T Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems, 22 high end digital radiography systems, 39 color Doppler’s and 39 analog x-ray units. These advanced world-class imaging systems will allow District Hospitals provide early diagnosis on a 24/7 basis in the clinical specialty areas of Neurology, Cardiology, Vascular imaging, Emergency/Trauma, Oncology, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Orthopedics, Gastroenterology.

John Rice, Vice Chairman, GE said “Providing high quality, accessible and affordable healthcare is one of the biggest challenges faced by governments all over the world. Through progressive public private partnerships, like the one we are announcing today with the Government of Maharashtra, patients are the biggest winners as they’ll have access to advanced and affordable healthcare that previously wasn’t available to them.”

Besides, GE is also working on smaller projects with other states. They aim at training more individuals who can accurately operate diagnostic equipment at hospitals. Their rural mission is to reduce costs of vaccines and make rural India self reliant.

Dr Satish R Gokhale

Tell us about oral care infrastructure in India.

The dentist to population ratio as on date is approximately 1 to 10,000 in urban areas and that in rural areas is approximately 1: 2,50,000. There are about 1,25,000 qualified dentists in India. About 80 per cent dentists work in major cities in India. However, 70 per cent of India’s population lives in the rural areas and who are being catered to by only 20 per cent of the dentists produced by this country. Further, there are no dental care centres available at the government or zilla parishad levels.

The oral care infrastructure in India, especially in rural areas, is poor. On a brighter note, with over 15,000 students graduating each year in dentistry, an improvement in the number of qualified dentists available for better oral and dental health care in India can be expected. However, development of structured, dental and oral heath care programmes still remains an issue.

Elaborate about the recently emerging oral diseases.

Due to the increasing consumption of gutka, pan masala, tobacco, etc in India, diseases such as oral submucous fibrosis and oral cancer are on the rise. Lucoplakia and lichenplanus, which are precancerous in nature, are also on the rise. Periodontal (gum) diseases are also linked with cardiovascular diseases.

Are colleges producing competent dentists today? What steps can be taken to enhance quality and expertise of these young doctors?

There are approximately 200 dental colleges in India producing about 15,000 dentists per year. However, fresh graduates are well read and theoretically up-to-date but lack practical knowledge and experience. A majority of dental colleges in India are run by private institutions, which lack hospital facilities and therefore attract only a small number of patients. It is upto these colleges to devise methods and ways in which they can provide their students with more practical training and experience. It is also time that the government thinks of establishing more dental colleges, which will produce more technically qualified and well equipped dentists.

The reasons for rise in dental tourism in the recent times.

Due to the low cost of dental treatment compared to the West, dental tourism is on a rise in India. Strong and aggressive marketing strategies of hospitals in India are also playing a vital role in the increase of dental tourism.

As far as dental treatments are concerned, procedures such as dental implants, other cosmetic dentistry procedures are very popular. Indian doctors have been found to be culturally and traditionally welcoming and hands on with their patients and this has made Indian doctors popular with their international patients. This in turn has also been instrumental in the rise in medical and dental tourism.

What kind of government support are you receiving to upgrade oral care services?

The government has offered very little and limited support to dental fraternity. They have liberalised import duty on dental equipment and material ensuring that all the latest materials and equipment are available in the market at competitive rates. A lot more needs to be done by the government, especially in sectors such as dental insurance. It will ensure that dental treatment is available and accessible to a large number of patients in the long run.

Point out the significant success factors of this industry.

Some recent advances such as digital X-rays, CBCT X-rays, dental implants, laser, CAD/CAM technique for dental laboratories, cosmetic dentistry have been added to this industry. These techniques have revolutionised dentistry in the last 20 years.

Pallavi Mukhopadhyay

(pallavi.mukhopadhyay@network18publishing.com) 

Dr Mukul Dabholkar

What kinds of specialised dental services are patients opting for lately?

Today, according to statistics, 98 per cent of dentists are based in urban areas and cater to just 25 per cent of the entire Indian population. However, currently India boasts of having the best specialised dental care services that are comparable to anywhere in the world and in any branch of dentistry. Unfortunately, a general dentist may have limitations in a few branches.

With the advent of the Internet & various other communication mediums, consumers are well aware of the available services. Today, patients are asking for root canal treatments, saving teeth, replacing teeth with implants, improving their smile. Their main concern is the level of pain to be endured and the number of visits to be made to the dentist. With the advent of modern dentistry, visits are reduced and turnaround time to complete work is minimised. Implants, cosmetic dentistry, smile design, saving teeth to last a life time is what patients look for.

How has the surge in recent private investments influenced this sector?

There has been a surge of recent private foreign investments followed by a spate of unethical marketing tactics. The National and State Dental Councils are making efforts to curb advertisements making false claims in contravention to the Dentist Act. However, they have not been completely successful. As the Dentists Act governs only the dentist, private companies do not fall under the purview, thus making it easy for them to use false and unethical marketing gimmicks. India is also home to charitable institutions that are funded by philanthropists and provide unregulated dentistry at cheap rates. These clinics not only have dirty surroundings but also archaic dental equipment.

Further, the recently entered private players are working on these charitable clinic business models and are targeting middle income group patients by charging them reasonably. These clinics offer clean and modern surroundings but usually employ fresh graduate who may not be skilled and dispense cheap dentistry with which the patient acquires initial relief but pays for it with his teeth as their longevity is greatly reduced. This trend is having a negative impact on the existing doctors. Are these chains clinics here to stay? Why do these chain clinics have multiple centres in less up market areas? Are they propagating mass dentistry and building up their credibility with repeated advertising and marketing? These questions need to be addressed soon.

Tell us about the emerging trends in oral care equipment market.

Latest equipment such as dental chairs, sterilisers, autoclaves, lasers, laboratory equipment are all available in India. These equipment are designed for increased comfort and user friendliness, reduced time consumption, accuracy in results and reduction in the number of visits to the doctor or the laboratory.

What kind of education pertaining to oral health must be imparted to the public by the dental fraternity today?

People should brush twice daily, visit the dentist regularly and get gum diseases and cavities treated with immediate effect. Neglect can only cause conditions to worsen and increase the required dental work.

How can access to dental care in rural areas be improved?

With a change in mindset of young dentists, issues pertaining to proper dental care provision in rural areas can be solved. Dentists should willfully set up practices in rural areas instead of solely concentrating on mega cities. Young dentists must travel to these areas and be driven to offer the rural population a better quality of life. This in turn would earn them respect, remuneration and a sense of satisfaction. Today, there exists immense scope for advanced work in the rural areas. It is a requisite that dentists take initiatives to organise dental camps in such areas. Emphasis on dental education in rural areas will also help in creating awareness about dental health.

Pallavi Mukhopadhyay

(pallavi.mukhopadhyay@network18publishing.com)