Apollo Tele Health Services on Saturday signed a Memorandum of Understanding with InnovaSpace, a global space life science and tele health consultancy, alongside a two-day international workshop on futuristic healthcare technology involving engineers, doctors and scientists.
K. Ramachandra, director, National Design & Research Forum, said discussing better forms of organ transport was one of the aims of the workshop — drones to carry organs for transplants as well as exploring viable perfusion organ containers. He spoke on setting up a specialist group of doctors and engineers to find tech solutions to healthcare challenges and pointed out the need for funding, suggesting a consortium approach to fund faster organ transport. K. Ganapathy, director, Apollo Tele Health Services, spoke about the journey of organ transplants in the country and the State. Thais Russomano, scientific director, InnovaSpace, said combining space technology and healthcare would bring benefits to many.
Sangita Reddy, joint managing director, Apollo Hospitals Group, spoke about smart healthcare — making healthcare accessible, immediate and ubiquitous to all and also about augmented intelligence — augmenting the knowledge of doctors from around the world.
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Executive chairman of the Apollo Hospitals Group Prathap C. Reddy said the group was looking at how they could contribute more in terms of healthcare and this was where space medicine played a role. He spoke of patients waiting for organ transplants and how drones could help in transporting them fast.
The workshop, which includes experts in several engineering fields, tele-medicine and emergency healthcare, will aim at helping develop affordable and innovative medical and healthcare devices, including smart health products.
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‘Jaya was brought in critical state’
Addressing media queries following the inauguration of a conference, executive chairman of the Apollo Hospitals Group Prathap C. Reddy said that former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was brought to the hospital in ‘a critical condition, but made significant progress due to the efforts of doctors.’
On whether he had received summons from the Arumughasamy Commission, Dr. Reddy said he had not received any but did not know if any of his doctors had. He also added that they had no problems with any summons.
On a question about conflicting press statements issued initially regarding Jayalalithaa’s health, Dr. Reddy said Jayalalithaa had been close to everybody’s heart and the advice to doctors then was not to say that she was in serious condition due to emotions of the people.