Experts from healthcare industry called for active industry participation under PPP mode, and focus on technological advancements as the only solution to vast prevailing disparity in healthcare at the CII Conclave on NextGen Healthcare - Roadmap: Quality Healthcare for All, organized by CII at New Delhi, on September 03, 2015.

They also stressed upon the need for active collaboration and support of various stakeholders like the industry, cooperatives and the NGOs in strengthening healthcare delivery systems, drugs distribution, use of Information Technology (IT), latest technologies and enhanced pharma supply chain management.

"Integration of working of five key ministries i.e the Ministry for Rural Development, Women and Child welfare, Water, Urban sanitation, Education and health is quite imperative", said Mr Dr Dinesh Batra, Co-Chairman, CII Healthcare & Director, Cygnus Hospitals. "If these five ministries can derive coordinated campaigns and launch joint schemes, then they would be far better equipped to provide quality healthcare to each and every individual of this country", he added.

"This is because some of the challenges lie outside health-care policy. Two-thirds of the health problems can also be solved by providing safe drinking water and sanitation. Even if we concentrate on these basic facilities, we can control many waterborne and airborne infectious diseases", he informed.

"Each year 39 million people in India enter BPL category due to poor delivery of healthcare services. To confront this, industry has to by-pass the rules and regulations and bureaucratic bottlenecks and find out innovative ways or build confidence with Chief Ministers and get MC regulations eased, to build world class hospitals and strengthen healthcare delivery system in India. For this, the key is good intent and strong political will of the government", emphasized Mr Batra.

"Though the share of Healthcare sector has increased from 0.9 percent to 2.5 percent of GDP in the 12th Five Year Plan, but still it is far low as compared to other countries, considering the diverse challenges of our vast country. For example, US spends 20 % of its GDP on healthcare. Hence we need support of all stakeholders like the Industry, NGOs, cooperatives etc. Industry presently spends 70 percent of the total spend on healthcare while government spends 30 percent. What we also need is the maximum utilization of the funds", shared Mr Dr Dharmendra Nagar, managing director, Paras Healthcare.

"It is very disheartening that still, 45 % of the Indian children are malnourished, our mothers are anemic, our villages have poor hygiene, while around 400 million abject poor are deprived of any healthcare services in India. Hence, we need to gear up our healthcare delivery mechanisms and for this, partnership is the only solution. There is a 160 billion USD untapped potential by 2017 in healthcare including hospitals, pharmaceuticals and delivery systems etc in India, which industry can really benefit from. With latest technologies, we can reach out to even the last man in remotest area in the present day Digital India, since 900 million people in India are accessible through mobile phones while another 120 million through internet. CII would consider creating a group on this state subject and take it further at state level", Dr Dinesh Dua, Vice Chairman, CII Chandigarh Council and CEO and director, Nectar Lifesciences.

"Some key issues that need to be addressed include like lack of infrastructure and manpower, inaccessibility of healthcare services, shortage of medical specialists and inefficiency of public healthcare providers. Though, in major urban areas, healthcare is of adequate quality and accessible, but its access is limited or unavailable in most rural areas and Tier II & Tier III cities, for which technology and partnership is the answer", shared Mr Amit Mookim, country principal, South Asia, IMS Health.