Medicines Archives - InnoHEALTH magazine

How do Yoga and Holistic Health correlate?

InnoHEALTH magazine digital team — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 03:32:03 +0000

Holistic health refers to the establishment of a link between the mind, body, and spirit, and the true meaning of Yoga is “union”—the union of the mind, emotions, and body. Yoga is more than just losing weight. It adds value and harmony to the body while also having a favourable effect. Those looking for a holistic approach to their health should try yoga. It will help them to manage their mental and emotional problems while also improving their physical health. Everything is connected and one will feel completely rejuvenated after yoga. Physical and breathing exercise, as well as meditation, boost general health. Yoga is a holistic system in itself. Yoga positions are designed to focus on the body while also lowering stress and improving health. It also helps to keep the mind and body in sync.

The benefits of yoga are solicited by the amount of balance, body awareness, and concentration, incorporated in one’s life and further promotes healthy aging.

Holistic wellbeing strikes a balance between physical and emotional well-being. It focuses on various aspects of life. If one adopts a holistic health strategy in their life, they will notice improvements in their emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being. After learning about the holistic health method, many have been able to overcome stress, sadness, addiction, and low self-esteem. The benefits of yoga are solicited by the amount of balance, body awareness, and concentration, incorporated in one’s life and further promotes healthy aging. The balanced mind helps us in understanding the needs of our mind and body, and also the propensity to develop a disease-free, healthy and beautiful body. A body free of disease and discomfort, both physically and emotionally.

It is a therapeutic method that frequently entails the use of a variety of complementary medicines and alternative healthcare methods. This method assumes that a person’s environment has an impact on him or her. As a result, it is preferable to choose nutritious foods over junk food or an unhealthy lifestyle over natural remedies. People want immediate results at the expense of long-term consequences. They do not live a complete and healthy lifestyle and do not benefit from the pure energy, vigour, and tone that god offers.

Researchers have proven that lifestyle decisions, whether made deliberately or unknowingly, cause illness or early mortality.

Any person’s mental attitude is influenced by what he chooses to hear or see, as well as what he wants to learn from the experience. Researchers have proven that lifestyle decisions, whether made deliberately or unknowingly, cause illness or early mortality. Consumption of excessive sugar, coffee, or embracing unfavourable mental attitudes such as anger, stress, or the use of drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, or a lack of exercise on a daily basis will degrade one’s personality in the long run.

Holistic health therapies take into account a variety of conditions and gradually but steadily enhance various levels. Holistic health is a continuous process that involves a variety of lifestyle factors such as diet, sleep, exercise, and daily routine. It assists the individual in supporting the body’s natural healing system and allowing them to begin living happily. It creates a state of equilibrium in which a person begins to accept responsibility for his or her own optimal health.

Composed by: “Javleen Girdhar has a passion for holistic health approaches that extends beyond fitness. She is an educator and trainer for dieticians and nutritionists.”

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Post Antibiotic World

InnoHEALTH Magazine — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 09:25:20 +0000

Like the ‘guardians of the galaxy’ the futuristic prospect of this world will be a place where the microbes have become resilient against antibiotics and the fight against infection has ceased to find its way through antibiotics. Though most of the antibiotics that are consumed are metabolized by the body, a negligible amount is passed through us as waste, which is further carried to wastewater treatment plants.

Also Read: Health and Oral Health Diseases

The basic methodology to clean the wastewater in plants is through membrane bioreactor that uses both biological as well as filtration process where bacteria are acclimatized to consume the waste products and help in metabolization. The antibiotic waste breakdown by bacteria often expresses resistance genes that reduce the effectiveness of the medicines. In the long run, the horizontal gene transfer develops whose expression pass from one generation to the next and the resistance genes gain prominence over the years. With the passing phase, the bacteria grow and thrive itself therefore often giving rise to biomass. The biomass is produced in tonnes by wastewater plants nearly every day. After treatment, they are often disposed of as landfills, fertilizers for agriculture and feed crops for livestock. A minute quantity of resistant bacteria and free-floating DNA often finds its way through effluent of the pharmaceutical industries. The studies have further shown that gene elements called plasmids carry resistance genes for several different types of antibiotics, therefore, resulting in a positive correlation between one type of antibiotic and the resistance gene of another. It creates a dangerous dormant situation that can erupt like an active pandemic under the favourable situation. Plasmids are a thousand times smaller than bacteria and their free-floating nature often surpasses the treatment barriers of the filtration system of the treatment process, therefore making exit through effluents. They further contaminate the surface water and groundwater – the two important sources of drinking water. Researchers have found that even low concentrations of just a single type of antibiotic in the water supply leads to resistance in multiple classes of antibiotics and hence leads to antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

Also Read: Health Card of Indian States

Water, as we all know, is the utmost need of our survival. Human body comprises around 60% water and the fact that less consumption of water leads to various diseases in the future. Apart from facts and figure, one simple question we often forget to inquire is where this water is coming from? Surface water i.e. lakes, rivers and ponds or groundwater i.e. tube wells, bore well, well as these are the two sources that give us a glass of water.

Also Read: Passenger Gave Birth to a Baby on Jetliner

Our health concern and the credulous brainwash of our mind by the various available water filter present scenario and save our planet from the harmful effect of self-made destruction.Effective treatment and management of wastewater from the pharmaceutical industry will help in overcoming antimicrobial resistance. Advanced treatment methods such as reverse osmosis, nano filtration, and membrane bioreactors have shown to be promising processes for cleaning micro pollutants with nano gram per litre (ng/L) concentration levels.The nation where the trial/testing of most of the antibiotic occurs, there are rarely any constraints implemented on the disposal of pharmaceutical wastewater to the surface water. The current scenario of environmental issue foresees that in the near future there will be scarcity of drinking water and our hope was restored when global challenge was taken to in the market often diverts us from our prime concern of keeping our planet safe from water pollution. The pollution of water bodies has been initiated by us and still we are invariably helping it grow with every passing day. As discussed earlier, the various point sources from domestic to industrial pave the way for antibiotic to contaminate the water bodies. According to the latest report of UNICEF, 2.1 billion people lack the access to clean and safe drinking water.

Also Read: Extended range of vision intraocular lenses

How do we remove the problem? What do we do to save ourselves from the harmful effects?

The encouraging words of Normal Vincent Peale, American author ‘Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution. If you don’t have any problems, you don’t get any seeds’ gives us the hope that we will successfully overcome the present scenario and save our planet from the harmful effect of self-made destruction.Effective treatment and management of wastewater from the pharmaceutical industry will help in overcoming antimicrobial resistance. Advanced treatment methods such as reverse osmosis, nano filtration, and membrane bioreactors have shown to be promising processes for cleaning micro pollutants with nano gram per litre (ng/L) concentration levels.The nation where the trial/testing of most of the antibiotic occurs, there are rarely any constraints implemented on the disposal of pharmaceutical wastewater to the surface water. The current scenario of environmental issue foresees that in the near future there will be scarcity of drinking water and our hope was restored when global challenge was taken to curb the antimicrobial resistance from environment. Remedial measures taken towards eradication are further discussed.

Also Read: Rising burden of non-communicable diseases

Political commitments: International efforts: World Health Organization Jaipur declaration on antimicrobial resistance 2011 recognized AMR as a serious public health threat. With the 2014 WHO Report, the extraordinary rates of AMR prevalent in India came into focus. After this report, joint efforts were made by India and WHO. While WHO labelled AMR as the Flagship Priority area for South East Asia Regional Office (SEARO), the Indian Medical Association launched an awareness programme to train the physicians and sensitize the general public. In 2015, the 68th World Health Assembly decided to incorporate the concept of One Health in the fight against AMR and a Global Action Plan was initiated. All member countries, including India, agreed to frame their own National Action Plans (NAPs) for AMR by 2017.

Also Read: Specific health situation of Indian states

National efforts: The Government of India formulated a Core Working Group on AMR that drafted a NAP for the country. Six strategic priorities were listed in NAP, all of which incorporated considerations for AMR in the environment, directly or indirectly. Further, each strategic priority has defined interventions, activities and outputs, the fulfillment of which is delineated by a timeline projected for the next five years. The NAP, although promising, has not yet come into full action in any of the Indian states so far. To curtail the prevalent malpractice of over-the-counter (OTC) sale of drugs, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization implemented Schedule H1 in India in 2014. It, however, encompasses only a few selected antimicrobial groups. In June 2017, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) published the list of maximum residue levels for antimicrobials in foods prepared from animal, poultry and fish.

Health Organization in India: To know the near-exact extent of AMR, AMR surveillance networks were initiated by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in 2013 and 2014, respectively. In 2015, these two organizations along with the support from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) USA, started a systematic assessment of the prevailing IPC practices in India with the aim of formulating new guidelines for preventing hospital-acquired infections.

Also Read: Rising risks for cardiovascular diseases & diabetes

These activities, however, cater basically to the emerging AMR in the healthcare settings and do not include special provisions for AMR in the environment. Similarly, the National Health Mission’s National Health Systems Resource Centre and the National Accreditation Board deal with IPC practices and strengthening of laboratories/hospitals and not with the AMR in the environment per se. The importance of AMR in the environment has been realized recently by the national health authorities and The National Health Policy 2017 calls for a rapid standardization of guidelines regarding antibiotic use, limiting the use of antibiotics as OTC medications, banning or restricting the use of antibiotics as growth promoters in animal livestock, and pharma co-vigilance including prescription audits inclusive of antibiotic usage – in the hospital and community.

Innovative ideas: The National Health Mission of India started the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan or the Swachh India Mission to improve the basic hygiene and sanitation in all spheres of life. As a part of this massive programme, education was imparted through mass media on the health hazards of open defecation. UNICEF data shows that out of one billion openly defecating people in the world, 60 percent reside in India. It is further argued that it is a behavioural problem with the Indians as other poverty struck nations of Africa and South East Asia did not have the problem of open defecation to this an extent. To deal with such socio-cultural issues, innovative ideas along with mass media are needed in India.

Also Read: How to write a funding proposal?

So far in India, antimicrobial resistance in the environment has been a topic of least priority. With an ever-increasing threat of AMR in the environment, immediate action is required to halt its progress and spread. A combined effort of multidisciplinary and multi-sectoral approach will be able to eradicate the problem in the near future.

About the author

Dr. Debleena Bhattacharya is an independent researcher. She is presently working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering at MEFGI, India. She holds a doctoral degree in Environmental Science from IIT (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad (India). Her specialisation is in the field of wastewater treatment and biotechnology.

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Machine Learning in Claims Processing

InnoHEALTH Magazine — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 07:57:09 +0000

Challenge

Healthcare costs across the world have soared over the past decades at a rate at which, where United States spends more on healthcare than the national budget of half of the countries in the world. A big chunk of those expenses relate to pharmaceutical products.

AI and IoT in Healthcare: Need of Future
Opportunity

Here is the opportunity for Machine Learning Solutions – in US, by and large, most pharmaceutical transactions are captured electronically as claims. These claims, and the way they are processed, cover a myriad scope of information including patient demographics, disease states, drug utilization review, formularies, coverage and utilization review, contra-indications, etc. This information can be used for a number of reasons – better pricingof drugs based on their utilization and volume, better prediction of diseases and therapeutic journeys where we can guess over time which drugs a patient will require, and a more interactive engagement of the patient using virtual “friends” to guide them through their therapy and ensure compliance, adherence and better outcomes.

IoT can truly Transform Rural Healthcare in India

Over the past several years, solutions have been operationalized working with payors, PBMs on cost and efficacy predictions for new therapies for HIV (PrEP treatment) and Hemophilia (Gene Therapy). Another application is successfully helping Pharmacy Benefit Managers predict their most efficient drug pricing for patients who are not covered with insurance, cost efficiencies for seasonal and style drugs to name a few. GxWave™ leverages LSTM algorithm (Long Short-Term Memory) in predicting price efficiencies, claim volumes, call center call volumes, and average margins.

Approach

Solutions such as GalaxE’s GxWave™ platform with solutions such as Claims Neurology described below, utilizes their proprietary technology to extract business rules from adjudication systems and then use prior claims data to predict various “edits” or applicable rules such as prior authorization (where the use of a specific drug requires express approval from the physician) or adjustments and accumulators so that across their therapy, the price they pay is properly adjusted for the full range of medicines and medical services the patient consumes. These pathways for the adjudication of a claim are then trained on neural nets that learn the time based, formulary based, disease and therapy-based trends.

AI and Cybersecurity in Digital Healthcare

The trained nets are then used to predict and project the therapeutic journey of a patient, or the volume and timeframe for the consumption of specific therapy in a given market.

With all the consolidations of drug & device industries in play, their efficiency has to be at the highest point in order to drive patient costs lower. GxWave™ is helping these entities with improving efficiency. With a combined data set comprising elements of documentation across the development lifecycle of an application with governing procedures and its intended use, natural language processing techniques can derive information from previously unexplored data sets that can be analyzed to ensure compliance to regulations, adherence to organization policies and procedures and alignment with the documented intended use of the system. Healthcare IT consists of diverse applications with multiple critical integrations at various levels where regulatory impact can be ambiguous and could be left unassessed. A change in the landscape has to be simultaneously assessed for regulatory and risk impacts (includes business, security and privacy risks) without delays ensuring all impacts are being planned for before the change is implemented.

Healthcare IT market builds the foundation of Artificial Intelligence
Advantages
A number of advantages have surfaced with these solutions:
1. Immediate re-categorization or inspection of current non-regulated applications that could potentially be regulated due to change in feature/functionality.
2. Expose deficiencies within the system that could lead to a potential replacement for not being able to satisfy customer and regulatory requirements.
3. Allow for continual monitoring instead of the traditional approach of conducting periodic reviews.
4. Improve software documentation quality across the application lifecycle.

This is just the beginning. We expect that solutions like GxWave™ will utilize data from genomics, patient profiles, therapy histories and help generate the most medically and economically rational and effective therapies for patients in the very near future!

About the authors

Sandipan Gangopadhyay is the President and COO of GalaxE and plays a key role in GalaxE’s continued worldwide expansion and operational success Prior to this, Mr. Gangopadhyay spent over a decade in high profile roles in both Pharmaceutical and Information Technology companies around the globe and instrumental in setting up one of India’s first private Software Technology Parks. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Bombay University, is a member of the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers, and is certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT.

Dheeraj Misra is the Chief Technical Officer and Senior Executive Vice President of GalaxE and has over 15 years of experience in the design, development, testing, porting and maintenance of application and system software for the healthcare industry. Prior to this, he spent a number of years in high profile roles at HCL Technologies, Context Integration, Eforce Global, and as a Research Specialist in Parallel Processing. He has a B.E. in Computer Engineering from REC, Allahabad.

Vijayaraj Chakravarthy, Senior Vice President of Delivery and Head of Strategic Business Unit, is a member of the GalaxE’s executive leadership team, responsible for organization growth and innovation through predictive analytics platform aiming to discover new cost reduction opportunities in the Healthcare ecosystem of the United States. He serves as a subject matter expert on various AI/ML-based platforms and frameworks. He is passionate about solving industry problems with automation methods and agile execution. His leadership style focuses on developing a positive environment, teamwork, passionate culture, and an entrepreneurial mindset. He has B.E in Electrical and Electronics from PSG College of Technology, India. He enjoys spending time with his family. He has a green thumb to nurture organic gardens. He likes to do tech-inspired research projects for Kids.

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Healthy Lives: Everyone, Everywhere

InnoHEALTH Magazine — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 09:22:43 +0000

Good health is the most precious thing anyone can have,” says Dr TedrosAdhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “When people are healthy, they can learn, work, and support themselves and their families. When they are sick, nothing else matters. Families and communities fall behind. That’s why WHO is so committed to ensuring good health for all.”

World Health Day

April 7th marks the birth anniversary of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and along with drives worldwide attention by spreading the message of the importance of global health each year.

Ranging from imperative issues such as food safety, diabetes, depressions, etc., this year the World Health Day embarks the mission of people-centered care irrespective of their financial hardships. The 2019 theme envisions the Universal Health Coverage (UHC), i.e., health for all. There are millions of people who have no access at all to healthcare. Majority of the populations are forced to choose between healthcare and other daily needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. In India, a lot of efforts need to be put in to ensure adequate medicines, affordable health policies, and financing strategies to enable everyone to get access to equal healthcare. “Universal” in UHC means “for all”, without discrimination, leaving no one behind, i.e. providing healthcare facilities which are

• Accessible
• Affordable
• Available
• Appropriate
• Adequate

Addressing the Financial Crisis

“Universal health coverage is also about ensuring access to essential quality care and financial protection,” says Dr. Mahjour. It aids in enhancing people’s health at large and increasing their life expectancy. Under this, many countries are protected from epidemics and the risk of hunger. This paves a way for new jobs, enhanced economic growth, and gender equality.

To make the phenomenon of Universal health coverage achievable globally, there should be concrete roadmaps which highlight the gaps and obstacles patients face in accessing proper healthcare. This can be done only when there are identified challenges, key actions and sustainable goals to be taken care of.

• There must be a holistic range of health and related services
• Quality care is a must
• There must be an end to discrimination and stigma
• The healthcare products and services should be affordable
• Sustainable investment in health is another prerequisite

Where India Stands – The New “Health-Y” Politics

The much-awaited general election will be held in India in April 2019 when the Indian voters will go to the polls. It is anticipated that whichever government comes into play will surely set a course for newer and better health policy.

Recent researches reveal an alarmingly rapid epidemiological transition. The occurrence of diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancer are rapidly on a rise. For instance, since 1990, the number of Indians with diabetes has increased from 26 million to approximately 65 million to date. The incidence of all cancers has increased by 28% between 1990 and 2016, with new cases of cancer emerging each year. India not only seems terribly engulfed in the swirling epidemic of non-communicable diseases, but it is also in the grip of a mental health emergency. The rate of global suicide deaths is speculated to be 1.1 times higher among women and 1.4 times higher among men than global averages in 2016.

It would be unfair if we highlight only the negative side of the picture. After many years of neglect, the Government of India has finally recognized and considered the perils of public discontent relating to health. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has initiated a new programme called Ayushman Bharat, which along with focusing on preventive health, emphasizes affordable health.

Ayushman Bharat majorly comprises two new flagship programmes. First, the creation of 1.5 lakh health and wellness centers across the whole country. These centers will primarily be responsible for providing primary healthcare facilities to provide health coverage for all. The second includes the National Health Protection Mission (NHPM)—a system of health insurance that intends to cover 500 million people. It covers secondary and tertiary care for the poorest and most vulnerable strata of society. These twin programmes together must help India improve access to quality health services and reduce out-of-pocket health expenditures.

Modi is the first Indian Prime Minister who has grasped the importance of health for Indian citizens and has prioritized universal health coverage as part of his political platform. “Modicare” as it is sometimes addressed to, can become a decisive issue in the upcoming general elections.

Way Forward for a Healthy Nation
Does Universal health Coverage still seem a distant goal in India!

The scant funding from the Central and state governments seems the root cause and the major hindrance in achieving UHC. The Central Government has recently announced a massive expansion of healthcare facilities.

Through its ambitious National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS), the Government of India provides a framework for universal health coverage in which it prioritizes healthcare delivery and its easy access. By reducing out-of-pocket payments, expanding service coverage, improving quality of services, and ultimately advancing UHC, countries and in particular, India with schemes like NHPS in place can transform the health of their people and bring drastic changes in society. As stated by WHO Director-General: “No one should have to choose between death and financial hardship. No one should have to choose between buying medicine and buying food.” UHC indeed is a way to go ahead.

About the author

Dr. Jasmeet Kaur is a Doctorate in Immunology and whenever she gets free time from the full-time job she loves to read and write about imperative issues in healthcare.

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Agonizing Ankylosing Spondylitis is More Common in Young Men

InnoHEALTH Magazine — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 05:50:28 +0000

Agonizing Ankylosing Spondylitis is more common in young men between 20 and 30 years of age than women; occurs in children as well.

For young people, less heard ailment Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) is an emerging disturbance, but that is a stark reality: initially, victims develop symptoms such as low back pain and stiffness that lasts for more than 30 minutes and worsens in the morning or after prolonged inactivity.

Panacea lies in regular exercise before AS grips individual like a wasp with stiffened ligaments and muscles. Dr. Uma Kumar, states that such cases were burgeoning, and timely treatment can only stave off complications.

Patients with AS must exercise regularly because it helps to limit spinal deformity and maintain their spinal movement and flexibility, while also relieving the back pain. Swimming and deep breathing are the best exercises. In addition, a hot shower in the morning can help to ease the pain and stiffness. Patients should avoid smoking, eat a healthy diet and maintain a healthy weight.

AS is not curable, but it is completely treatable if detected early. Only 10% of patients have a severely disabling disease. With the help of the correct medication and lifestyle modification, approximately 80% people with AS remain completely independent or just minimally disabled in the long-term.

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In an exclusive interview to InnoHEALTH magazine, Dr. Kumar traces the original meaning of the disease, and says the word Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) is derived from the Greek words ankylosis meaning ‘stiffening’, spondylosis meaning ‘vertebra’, and – it means ‘inflammation’.

She answered several questions on the ailment.

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Question: Can you please explain in detail AS?

AS is a chronic inflammatory type of spondyloarthritis (a broad term for all types of arthritis that affects the spine) that is further classified as an ‘axial spondyloarthritis’ because it affects the joints of the spine and pelvis (where the sacral bone attaches to the iliac bone on either side of the body). When spinal ligaments get inflamed at the point where they attach to the vertebrae, the ‘bone-making cells’ of the body get stimulated and start to grow bone within the ligaments, which results in the formation of bony bridges between adjoining vertebrae – this is what leads to a stiff back.

Question: Does it affect other parts of the body as well?

Sometimes, other joints of the body such as the ankle, knee, and hip may also be affected. AS is more common in young men between 20 and 30 years of age than women. It can occur in children as well. The prevalence of AS ranges from 0.8% to 1.8% in the general population.

Question: Are genetic and environmental factors linked to AS?

The exact cause of AS is unknown. However, there is a strong genetic predisposition and most patients with AS have the HLA B27 gene. About 6% to 8% of the Indian population has the HLA B27 gene and amongst them, those with a family history of AS in a first-degree relative have a 30% chance of developing the disease. However, only 2% of individuals with this gene actually develop the disease. It is hypothesized that some stimuli (e.g. environmental factors, gut microbiome) trigger AS development in genetically predisposed individuals. Moreover, AS can also develop in individuals without HLA B27. It is likely that there are some undiscovered genetic factors that could also be involved in its etiology.

Question: Whether Initial symptoms itself are alarming or not?

Initial symptoms may not appear alarming, but they can be serious. Patients with AS initially develop symptoms such as low back pain and stiffness that lasts for more than 30 minutes and worsens in the morning or after prolonged inactivity. They often find it difficult to turn on the bed during the latter part of the night and the pain sometimes wakes them up from sleep. Typically, the back pain improves with activity. Some of the tendons and ligaments of the body may also get inflamed (e.g. costochondritis & Achilles tendinitis).

Question: What are the other symptoms?

Other symptoms of AS are chest stiffness; pain in the neck, hip, shoulder, glutes (buttock) and heel; as well as arthritis of the knee, ankle, toes or fingers. About 30% of the patients may develop uveitis (painful red eye) and a similar number of patient’s long-standing disease may develop osteoporosis (thin weak bones). The lungs, heart (valves) and kidneys may also get affected.

Question: How can it be diagnosed accurately?

We do clinical diagnosis with imaging and genetic tests. AS is diagnosed based on a patient’s clinical profile and radiological (X-ray) investigations. Blood tests include genetic tests to detect the HLA B27 gene; and tests that detect raised erythrocyte sedimentation rates (ESR) and increased C-reactive protein (CRP) levels to help support the diagnosis. X-ray imaging cannot detect bone changes during the initial stages of the disease making early diagnosis difficult. However, MRI scans of the sacroiliac joints can be used to diagnose AS in the early stages, when the X-ray of this region still appears ‘normal’.

Question: Can treatment help to slow down or stop the progression of AS?

The aim of treatment is to relieve pain; slow down or stop disease progression, and maintain mobility of the spine. Medicines for AS include non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), analgesics, disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) and biologics (targeted therapy). NSAIDs provide pain relief and also retard the progression of AS and patients prescribed these medicines must take them regularly and NOT ‘as and when required’. DMARDs like methotrexate, sulphasalazine, and leflunomide are prescribed for patients with peripheral arthritis. Patients who do not respond well to these drugs may be prescribed biologics such as anti-TNF alpha agents and anti-IL-17 inhibitors, as long as they have not had TB or a similar significant illness in the past.

These biologics and other tools that help us assess the disease have made it possible for patients to lead an almost normal life. Oral or parenteral glucocorticoids have no role in the management of AS though intraarticular steroid injections may sometimes be needed.

Question: Is surgical intervention a solution?

Surgery is rarely required for correcting spinal deformity, though a hip or knee replacement surgery may be needed if there is significant joint damage.

Question: What should be a frequency for consulting doctors?

Regular follow-up with the doctor is extremely important to adjust the dose and to detect any drug adverse effects or any complication or comorbidity at the earliest.

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Arthritis includes more than 100 different conditions that affect joints and the surrounding tissue. The most common form of arthritis in the United States is osteoarthritis, followed by gout and rheumatoid arthritis. Symptoms include pain, aching, stiffness, and swelling in or around the joints. Arthritis affects people of all ages, including children. Although the risk of developing arthritis increases with age, more than half of adults with arthritis are younger than 65. About 1 in 4 adults has arthritis in US.

According to Centers for Disease Control And Prevention in US, Arthritis affects about 1 in 4 adults in the United States; That’s 54 million men and women; As the US population ages & obesity increases, the number of adults with arthritis is expected to increase to 78 million by 2040; one-third of adults living in rural areas have Arthritis; over 1 in 2 adults with Arthritis in rural areas are limited by it; Arthritis is a leading cause of disability in the US. Twenty-four million adults report limitations due to Arthritis. And, the most common form of Arthritis in US is osteoarthritis.

People with arthritis can manage symptoms & reduce pain by learning self-management strategies and being physically active.

Prevention tips – Early diagnosis and appropriate management of arthritis, including self-management activities, can help people with the condition live well without pain. Everyone should exercise regularly to stay healthy, including people with Arthritis. Physical activity has been proven to reduce the pain and restore function. There are proven exercise programmes that can help people with arthritis increase their physical activity safely and comfortably. Maintaining a healthy weight has shown to decrease the risk of developing Osteoarthritis and gout and may decrease disease progression and arthritis-related activity limitations.

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Aspirin to Aspiration

InnoHEALTH Magazine — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 05:55:29 +0000

3 Facts that pushed an industry from ASPIRIN to ASPIRATION

How technology and innovation will drive the Pharma industry? Ever since the pyramids were erected in Giza, the need for medication and surgery were required. During the Stone Age, as early as 3,300 BC, studies have shown that primitive forms of herbal condiments were used to treat wounds and certain lung disorders. Ayurveda, from the annals of the Hindu Veda scriptures, can be traced back to almost 4,000 BC.

The first institution to train individuals in the field of physiology and medication was established in Italy, around the 15th century.

Although the first landmark in the healthcare industry was the accidental discovery of Penicillin by Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming, in the year 1928; the widespread use of Penicillin was initiated only in 1942 to treat infections caused by Streptococci Bacterium. But over time, Penicillin-resistant bacteria began to come to life.

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And it wasn’t an isolated situation, as overtime viruses and parasites begun mutating and developing resistance over their target medication that it became important to continuously develop more advanced strains of medicines, and this sparked off the birth of the Pharmaceutical and Drug testing industry!

In 2018, the pharmaceutical industry is one of the top 3 industries in the world. In 2017, the pharmaceutical industry pumped nearly USD 24 bill into advertising and PR, with USD 12 bill from the United States alone!

The industry invests nearly USD 40 bill a year on drug development and clinical trials, making it one of the biggest contributors to the international economy.

The need for constant innovation and development of drugs has risen drastically over the last 15 years. The growth spurt arose due to the birth of certain strains of bacterium and viruses that have begun adapting to the medication. As the causal organisms began to adapt to the quintessential drugs, the industry had to keep researching drugs to fight this mutation.

(By Trescon)

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10 Latest Healthcare Innovations

InnoHEALTH Magazine — Fri, 10 Aug 2018 10:11:30 +0000

1. Powerdot

PowerDot works via a mobile app that uses Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) to activate your muscle fibers, get your body’s lymphatic system flowing and increase the blood flow to targeted areas. Basically, it gets you moving. The result is the creation of a perfect environment for the body to recover faster, feel better and overall well-being. It also allows you to control your workout. An impulse is sent to the pods based on the muscle group you select to target which causes the muscles to activate. The feeling that it creates can be intense and bizarre at first, but you will get used to it in a few uses. It is also compact enough to carry on a holiday or trip and is available from £275 at PowerDot.

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2. Visit: An Artificial Intelligence Start-up

Artificial intelligence is the future and it aims at making human life easier. With this view, a Delhi-based start-up VISIT was launched in 2016 which is an on-demand healthcare service online platform that provides its users with a pool of medical specialists and general physicians to choose from, for consultation. The facility has an artificial intelligence based ‘chatbot’ that acts as a digital assistant to provide ‘smart help’ to patients in getting a consultation from doctors. The chatbot comes with a USP that when a patient accesses it for help, it learns using the information given by the patient and uses the information to reinforce its decision network.

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The chatbot tracks user’s activity, sleep, calories and fitness data to help them reach their goals with continuous reminders, insights, and motivation. The VISIT offers paid online consultation, through video and voice channels and seven days of free follow-up check-up over text chat. The service also maintains a pool of MBBS doctors who through its ‘Q’ service offer free health advice by text. The pool of 2200 doctors includes psychologists, dieticians, dermatologists, sexologists, gynecologists, preventive cardiology and pediatricians besides general physicians.

3. Snore Circle

A China-based firm VVFLY Electronics has developed a smart anti-snoring eye mask called Snore Circle priced at nearly INR 9700. Snore Circle is a smart wearable sleeping mask that comes with a little module that uses sound detection and bone conduction to identify when one is snoring. Once that is done, it sends out little vibrations to trick one’s brain into tightening one’s throat muscles. Once the throat muscles are tightened, snoring should subside. The vibrations on the Snore Circle adjust to your snoring level and are tuned well enough so that they don’t get so strong that people just end up waking up instead they are just enough to alter your throat muscles. The mask has an 80 mAh battery and can detect snoring by giving out vibrations at 36 levels. It allows the users to monitor and analyze their snoring, its intensity and decibel level along with sleeping data through its Snore Circle App.

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4. Zipline: World’s Fastest Commercial Delivery Drone

US-based start-up Zipline has developed a drone that can deliver urgent medicines, blood and vaccines mid-flight. Hospitals can text orders to Zipline for the required products, which are packed at its centers and then launched aboard the drone that races along at over 100kmph. The autonomous drone then drops the package via parachute at the designated area. Zipline improves access to these supplies by flying over impassable mountains and washed-out roads, delivering directly to remote clinics. The supplies are centralized and provide on-demand deliveries, completely reducing waste and stock-outs. Zipline provides a seamless delivery system at an affordable price, obsessing over every

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detail so that healthcare providers can solely focus on patient health. Zipline created national drone delivery system to ship blood and drugs to remote medical centers in Rwanda. Now the company has developed world’s swiftest commercial delivery drone, with a top speed of 128kmph (a hair shy of 80mph) with its extended services in Tanzania.

5. Livehealth

This is an endeavor to make medical reports smarter. This Pune-based start-up, founded in 2013, works as a management information system for healthcare providers by using Artificial Intelligence to process a huge data of medical records and ERP transactions. The system collects samples, manages patient records, diagnoses them, generates reports and aids in billing and inventory, making the process smarter and more efficient. In nutshell, it’s an effort that digitizes diagnostic lab workflows through its SaaS platform and makes them available on the cloud to patients and doctors. Doctors and consultants get access to their patient records using a mobile app and the patients can use the app to understand their reports, analyze their past health data and monitor their health using trackers.

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Recently the company has raised US$1.1 mil from Nexus Venture Partners which it intends to use to expand its platform across India, explore international markets and to strengthen the product and technology. LiveHealth’s platform has digitized more than 72 million records, so far, and is delivering over 50,000 digital medical records to doctors and patients every day. The start-up works with more than 650 diagnostic centers across India and Africa to automate their operations i.e. to manage patients, financial transactions etc.

6. Niramai: A Novel Breast Cancer Screening Solution

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This Bangalore-based start-up, founded in 2016, uses artificial intelligence for a pain-free breast cancer screening. Recently, it had successfully raised money to scale up its efforts. The screening method can detect tumors five times smaller than what clinical examination can detect. It is a safe, non-touch, radiation-free, and low-cost method. Since it’s cost-effective and does not require heavy equipment this solution seems to be ideal for smaller towns where affordable health care is the need of the hour. Mammography works only for women over 40 and increasingly there has been a prevalence of breast cancer among young women, which makes a solution like this a welcome one. NIRAMAI uses a high-resolution thermal sensing device that scans the chest area like a camera. It then uses a cloud-hosted analytics solution for analyzing the thermal images. Its SaaS solution uses big data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning for reliable, early and accurate breast cancer screening. The innovative methods used in the solution have led to multiple US patents, and their novel algorithms have also been peer-reviewed in international scientific conferences. The startup has already started two clinical trials with established hospitals.

7. Hearing Fitness App

Denmark-based company Oticon, a giant hearing solution manufacturer has launched the world’s first hearing fitness tracking technology that helps track hearing aid use and provides insights you can use to optimize your health. The app is based on big data analytics that combines lifestyle and healthcare data with local sound environment analysis and is designed to measure the impact of one’s hearing on their health. This app was declared the winner of the 2018 CES Innovation Award in the software and mobile apps category. Health Fitness gives advice and encouragement to help users hear better and stay healthy.

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8. Lumenis M22 Optimal Pulse Technology – An Effective Solution To Treat Dry Eyes

Dry eyes affect millions of adults and its risk increases with advancing age. Keeping this acute eye problem in mind, Lumenis worked in this direction. Lumenis, world’s largest energy-based medical device company for surgical, ophthalmology and aesthetic applications is renowned for its technological breakthroughs in ophthalmic lasers and has a long list of industry gold standards. Lumenis’ latest M22 optimal pulse technology is the answer to a majority of eye inflammation treatments with optimal pulse technology (OPT). Mumbai’s renowned super specialty eye care Ojas Eye Hospital has brought in India Lumenis M22 Optimal Pulse Technology (OPT) for treatment of dry eyes.

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The latest eye care technology is seen as a great revolutionary value addition to the ophthalmic applications especially for the treatment of dry eyes. The M22 services will be available at two branches of Ojas Eye Hospital, one at Bandra and the other at Kandivali. Recent studies have showcased prevalence of dry eyes among patients ranging across age groups. Meibomian Gland Dysfunction (MGD) is one of the leading causes of dry eye disease (DED), affecting millions of people worldwide. Optimal pulse technology from Lumenis has emerged as the most effective alternative for patients, leading to significant improvement in ocular surface quality, gland function and dry eye symptoms. The Lumenis M22 OPT is an excellent technology for treating eyelid inflammation. OPT is selectively absorbed in the hemoglobin of abnormal blood vessels and destroys them by thrombolysis thereby treating the root cause of the problem leading to immediate relief, a safe and comfortable, fast ‘lunchtime treatment’ and improves the skin appearance too.

9. Karma Healthcare

Karma Healthcare, a Rajasthan-based start-up in the technology-led healthcare space has recently raised INR 3 crores from different investors. The start-up aims to provide high quality, affordable, equitable and reliable healthcare to India’s underserved population via a differentiated business model. The company has combined the human touch of a nurse with the scalability of shared doctor services via real-time online video consultations. It delivers healthcare to consumers via e-Doctor clinics. The effort is to have e-clinics Pan-India. The company thus seeks to make the definitive large-scale impact and in-turn take significant steps towards ‘healthcare for all’. So far, the company has given over 50,000 consultations and currently has 10 e-Doctor clinics in the states of Haryana and Rajasthan.

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There is a comprehensive ecosystem of clinical treatment, quality medicines and diagnostics at competitive prices. The company has developed an in-house technology suite that helps it deliver standardized care including a bespoke Clinical Decision Support System and is extending its capabilities to deep learning driven diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring. The company has backing from Tata Trusts, UBS Optimus Foundation, and WISH Foundation.

10. Haemophilia Care in India

Haemophilia is a genetic disorder of blood coagulation due to decreased levels or a complete lack of clotting factors that results in profuse bleeding into joints, muscles or internal organs either spontaneously or as a result of accidental or surgical trauma. Globally, India is among the top ten countries of people living with Haemophilia A1 with about 18000 cases. Studies have revealed that by the age of 25 years, 79% of people with Haemophilia are likely to become severely disabled if proper treatment is not provided. Efforts are being made to tackle this situation, so in April this year, Lok Nayak Hospital jointly conducted a one-day patient awareness program “Haem Utsav”, e-learning to empower Haemophilia care in India supported by Novo Nordisk, India. An updated Haemophilia India website (www.haemophiliaindia.com) has been launched for e-learning. Delhi Government has won a global award for introducing yoga sutra in Haemophilia, taken up advocacy and capacity building programs, launched skill-based training programs and a self-infusion program and created self-help groups for Haemophilia.

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Rural healthcare: Solutions lie in innovations

InnoHEALTH Magazine — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 11:10:53 +0000

It has become imperative to make rural and remote areas healthy and free of diseases and infections to make ‘National Health Mission’ a success. There are still many parts of the country where medical services are still not accessible. With the iKure’shealthcare delivery system, the dream of providing minimum health service to the rural parts of the country has become true. Armed with Wireless Health Incident Monitoring Systems, Community Health Workers have been at forefront to provide doorstep solutions at minimal cost. iKure’shealthcare has become a new frontier to drive innovations in rural healthcare delivery

There are over 330 CHWs who are trained and strategically deployed across six states in rural India and have been rendering services under iKure’shealthcare delivery system.

Jayashree is one the CHW who works relentlessly in her village Hubli(Karnataka). One day, she visited a woman named Pushpa who was in her first trimester and looked quite unwell.On enquiring, Pushpa was found to suffer from Epilepsy. Her family also revealed that she has been prescribed with medicines by a local doctor, but she didn’t take them regularly.

Epilepsy is a disorder of the nervous system and such patients during pregnancy have major concerns. Jayashree felt the need and promptly captured her vitals on her smartphone loaded with Wireless Health Incident Monitoring Systems, (WHIMS), and pushed the patient’s vitals on to the cloud for a quick doctor reference.

For the next few days, Jayashree monitored and screened her closely and counselled her and family about different preventive measures pertaining to her health conditions. Soon after, Pushpa recovered and gave birth to a healthy child.

In the context of rural settings, it is never possible to create doctors or health clinics as required. To bridge the gap, the grassroots community members are empowered to provide clinical careenabled through WHIMS.The technology application is designed with an intuitive graphics user interface that can be efficiently used by a health worker even with a basic education.

For instance, WHIMS screen has a complete photograph of a human body.When a health worker clicks on the head, WHIMS gives options of potential symptoms of the head, such as ache, dizziness, seeing dark spots, and so on.

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Usually with the standard diagnostic tool, low accessibility and portability remain a huge constrain. WHIMS is accompanied with low-cost portable instruments to measure basic statistics and loaded on a tablet is carried by the CHWs in the remotest villages to diagnose patients. The patients pay an affordable rate for basic diagnostics and consultations, through which they earn additional income.

Unlike the Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA workers) who work as community mobilizer and not authorized to deliver clinical services, these CHWs meet both the ends.

Equipped with a medical kit that consists of devices including BP machine, stethoscope, pulse oximeter, thermometer, first aid kit, weight machine, Height measuring scale and gloves,they carry medicines for basic common ailments, non-invasive hemoglobin meter, haemoglobin kit, mobile phone based sphygmomanometer, urine analyzer, calorimeter, ECG, flipcharts/ Hoardings & registers.

Through these CHWs, every patient is also provisioned with Digital Health Card (DTH) encrypted with a QR (Quick Response) code and during home visits. DTH gets updated with latest clinical indicators. The health data obtained from the health cards is synced to a cloud for effective utilization in the upward heath chain at both secondary and tertiary levels.

CHW’s contact and familiarity within the community drive effective community mobilization measures. As they become an integral part of the healthcare delivery model, CHWs act as a catalyst to drive behavioral change. While they interacts and communicates the necessity on the ground and identifies appropriate health needs, it is through street plays, hoardings and message dissemination on mobile phones, theymobilize patients at different levels. They are also attuned to provide nutritional counselling, and spectacle services based on the community needs.

Further, WHIMS is upgraded with robust supply chain management framework, innovative algorithm, and Data Warehousing solutions. Driven by its CHWs, iKure aims to bring efficiency in public system & programe and improve lives.

The CHW model of empowering the women community and gender mainstreaming represents transformational change in rural healthcare delivery. As they champion tech-savvy cultural values in otherwise austere facilities, and limited supply of doctors, such effort has established inspirational leaders driving catalyst change in sustainable rural development.

“For a basic diagnostic long distance travel time, high cost of services and prolonged waiting hours at the local PHCs was a huge burden for these rural residents. Use of P-O-C devices is extremely portable, affordable with high accuracy rate and can be used by any health worker with a short training. This has been a critical step in rural healthcare delivery with a positive outcome on prevention, curative care and treatment procedures”.

Dr. Ajay Agrawal, Medical
Director-iKure

“Initially when I used to visit pregnant women, they were apprehensive and reserved. But repeated visits have given them confidence to open up. They ask many questions, show doctor’s report and ask for medicines. I have a joint family and few among them are pregnant, even they are educated, but they would consult me and ask for my opinion. I feel valued and found a voice through iKure”.

Gayathri Acharya
iKure CHW, Hubli, Karnataka

(Author: Dr. Tirumala Santra Mandal is a research and communication analyst at iKure. With a doctorate degree in corporate communication from IIT Kharagpur, she has worked in diverse fields of communications such as lie detection, multimedia communication, communicative English. Prior to working with iKure, she has worked as an editor and authored several publications in referred and business journals both at national and international levels.)

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Testing Times for India

InnoHEALTH Magazine — Thu, 23 Nov 2017 07:34:34 +0000

Brig (Hony) Arvind Lal is a pioneer in bringing laboratory services in India at par with the international world. He has modernized Indian medical diagnostics and initiated the first Public Private Partnership (PPP) in the field of laboratory testing in India. Under his guidance, Dr Lal PathLabs (LPL) has become one of the most reputed laboratories in Asia having to its credit quality accreditations from various national and international bodies. Currently they operate over 172 labs, including Asia’s biggest lab at Rohini, New Delhi with 1,500 collection centers and pick-up samples from another 7,000 medical establishments all over India. The lab tests over 50,000 patients every day or nearly 10 million patients in a year.

He holds the honorary rank of a Brigadier in the Indian Army and the Government of India conferred him Padma Shri (Indian national award) in 2009, for his contributions to Medicine.

In an interview with KANIKA CHAUHAN InnoHEALTH , he sheds light on the evergrowing demands of quality testing and test labs in the country and shares his vision of a healthier future for India and every Indian.

Q1. When the Lal Path Labs started 68 years back, what was the scenario of Indian healthcare industry? How do you see the market now? And how has been the journey?

My late father Dr. Major S.K Lal started this lab in April 1949. He was a displaced person from the partition and came to India from Rawalpindi in 1947. After coming to Delhi he worked in a government lab for one-and-a-half years and then started the first pathology lab in North India. At that point of time there were hardly any pathology tests as we know neither there were any routine tests like, HP, TLC, ESR, Urine Test, Blood sugar Test, Cholesterol test. So there was not any competition then.

Q2. What is your future business plans both at National and International level?

We are running 1700 laboratories in India and about 1600 collection centers. In addition we take another 5000 collections of blood samples from our pick up points. For example Medanta, Fortis, Moolchand and Apollo are some of the pick-up points we have.

Last year we tested about 1.35crore patients, so the average of the samples we can test is about 55000 in a day. We are the biggest Histopathology Biopsy Centre in the world.

Histopathology Biopsy is a test basically to detect cancer. Suppose if a lady has a lump in her breast, so she feels something has to be done about the lump, a part of the lump is surgically taken out which is known as the biopsy, it is the biopsy we test and find out the results. There is a possibility of two things either the tumor is benign (Non-Cancerous) or malignant (Cancerous). If the lady has malignancy she under goes with further tests, chemotherapy and radioactive therapies as per clinical requirement. We are the largest Histopathology in the world. We test about 1000 biopsies in one day and we are the second largest kidney biopsy center in the world. We are the only laboratories in India which have their own electro-microscope for very high end testing. We have our centers in all the major cities of India.

Our next step would be to set up another comprehensive laboratory in Lucknow. We have such research center in Kolkata and next year we will make one in Lucknow. With this we will provide high end services for the people in the region for whom the services are not available.

Q3. With so many market players why people should opt for Dr. Lal? What additional value you bring to the table?

We have many reasons, first of all people know that we are not fly by night operators and also they have faith in us since last 70 years plus people come to us for their pathological tests because 70% of all the medical decisions are nbased upon the pathology test of a patient, hence if the pathological tests result aren’t in place 70% of the medical decision can’t be taken. Gone were the days when people used to visit the “vaids” and doctors and they felt the nerves and pulse gave medicines, now it is evidence based medication. If someone has fever the doctor would suggest the person to get a blood test because it could be malaria, chikungunya, dengue or it could be anything. And if the person is diagnosed with anything she or he will get the treatment for the same. Now the medicines are completely evidence based, there is no hit and trial. These are the reasons why people come to us.

Q4. With Dr. Lal Path labs entering into the international market with operations in countries like Middle East, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal and many more, where do you see the potential for growth of your organization?

The first reason is, India is not having the kind of quality labs that it should have. There is a demand and supply problem. That is because there are no large laboratories. There are lots of facilities that claim to do testing, but they are not testing laboratories but testing shops. This is what is to be changed and people give the example of our establishment and say that “they should be like Dr. Lal’s laboratory.” All these countries you have mentioned, we are getting their samples for testing but only one lab is set up in Nepal and next would be in Bangladesh and then we will go to other countries. The reason we are slow on this is because our own country is huge. I usually say to people that if we will take out Uttar Pradesh and put it in the Indian Ocean, India would be the 5th largest country in the world. So this is the reason that we want to look at our country first and then look at the outside market.

Q5. What kind of environment does your organisation provide to patients?

Our organisation provides a very sterile kind of an environment, it doesn’t smell, and blood is not spilled around, there are no flies buzzing around the surroundings. This is a kind of a place where anyone would like to go to.

Q6. Now days there so many machines available in the market for test like sugar, BP etc, which we can be used by the patients themselves. How good is that? What are your views?

These are known as point of care testing and people can test a few things but in India people can only test blood sugar. For which we suggest the patient to check his or her blood sugar on a regular basis of 15 or 20 days, so these are called Point of Care Testing (POCT).

The POCT in India is not established because firstly, it is very expensive and secondly the Indian people aren’t savvy. There are seven types of care testing which is emanated by a lady. A lady can go to the bathroom and test her pregnancy by a UPT (urinal pregnancy test) in which she gets to know whether she is pregnant or not then in this case there is no need of a pathological test. When I was young we never had cats and dogs as pets but we had rabbits , so I never couldn’t understand why my father killed those rabbits and I got my answer when I was studying medicine. The reason why rabbits were killed during that time i.e, in early 1950s people used to check the pregnancy through it. A pregnant woman’s urine was injected into a female rabbit and after killing them they use to dissect the abdomen area to find ovulating ovaries. This is how pregnancy test were conducted.

Q7. Now a days Dr. Lal Path labs is focusing on inorganic growth; how beneficial it is to patients?

The growth in any sphere or in any business is either organic or inorganic, organic means when a person is creating his own set up, say if a person is doing well in Delhi so he decides to open a set up in Uttar Pradesh and then in Uttarakhand, and inorganic growth is when other person is ready to give up her or his lab to somebody else irrespective of any reason the former will give some certain amount of money to the latter in position of the lab this is called inorganic growth. We have done 10 inorganic growths till now and yes we will buy some more from south of India and west of India.

Q8. What innovations you think can bring down cost, keep quality and improve efficiency on which researchers and start-ups concentrate?

There is no start-up in my line, if one is a qualified pathologist either he can work in a pathology lab or can start his own lab. The start-up in Delhi is difficult because Delhi has become a saturated city. there are many people who are running many pathology labs and they shouldn’t run these pathology labs and the reason they are running the labs is because it is very lucrative, which is very unethical and should not be done.

So the government of India has also started the voice to our ways and they said that we are going to have a clinical establishment act which has been passed by the parliament in 2010. Since the healthcare is state subject so all the 29 states have not adopted it or implemented it. There are a chain of pathology labs which are not run by the pathologists they are run by the non-pathologists they are not even doctors they are quacks. So this brings out the quality and efficiency of the whole industry.

They are many diseases which affect the mankind these days and these diseases are called the non-communicable diseases. The non-communicable diseases can’t communicate with others, whereas malaria, chikungunya and dengue are communicable diseases because it happens through a mosquito bite. TB is a communicable disease too and if a person’s lungs are infected by TB people around them will get infected. In India we lose two patients of TB in every three minutes, India has a burden of communicable diseases which includes Hepatitis A.

But a bigger set of diseases have come out which are called NCDs (Non Communicable Diseases) and the NCDs are killing 65% of our people and if we will not control the NCDs it will also affect the two per cent of our GDP. The NCDs are headed by the high blood pressure, obesity, smoking, cardiac diseases, lung diseases, cancer, kidney diseases and stroke. Why it is becoming so important to us because it is also called the life style diseases, it changes the lifestyle of the person which has suddenly come up. India has large number of cancer patients and also large number of blood pressure patients. There is an element of genetic transfer of physical appearance of a person but some diseases are also transferred which only run in families.

The problem with Indian people is they only come in illness, but they should know that they should get their self-check on a regular basis to keep a check on their health, my main point is to make people aware of the annual healthcare which is very important for one’s health which is in between the doctor and a patient and also make them aware of the testing in wellness not in illness.

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