AAPI conducts global healthcare summit
Press Release
New York
Indian-origin physicians from the US, UK, Canada, Australia and other nations gathered in New Delhi last week for AAPI Global Healthcare Summit to discuss and improve healthcare delivery system in collaboration with their Indian counterparts. American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), the largest and most rapidly growing US-based professional organization. and that conducted Indo-US Healthcare Summit for two years in end of 2007 and in Jan 2009 took the lead in putting together a world-class two day summit inaugurated by Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Dinesh Trivedi.
This year, AAPI has roped in British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO) and top-notch Indian medical professional associations to make it truly a global summit. The Summit shared the best practices and experience from leading experts around the world to develop actionable plans for launching demonstration projects with focus on prevention treatment and management of priority disease states in India with define measurable metrics to ensure that action plans are economically viable.
The Indian associations working in tandem this year are Indian Medical Association (IMA); AmeriCares India; Federation of Obstetric & Gynecological Societies of India (FOGSI), Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP); Association of Surgeons of India (ASI); Indian Society of Medical and Pediatric Oncology (ISMPO) ICON and Urogynacology and Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery Society of India. Healthcare companies like Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer are the global sponsors for the summit. The physicians will discuss project-based healthcare system and time-bound delivery mechanism.
The Summit brought together some of the world's most renowned experts to focus on priority disease states such as Allergy & Immunology, Cardiovascular, Diabetes, Infectious Disease (HIV/AIDS), Emergency Medicine, Mental Health and Maternal & Child Health. This year's summit had a wider global perspective with the addition of medical tourism and Health Information Technology.
Dr. Vinod K Shah, AAPI President, welcoming the gathering, said advances in vaccination, antibiotics, minimum invasive surgery, robotic technology, diagnostic modality and understanding of genetics have shown a breakthrough results. "This is a stunning achievement we all can be proud of and yet the problem with access to healthcare is real, a striking contrast. The gap in health between poor and rich remains wide."
India spends only six percent of its GDP on healthcare of which only 1.5 percent comes from government spending. The healthcare manpower and provider are extremely low. There are only 100 physicians for 100,000 populations in India and this is lower than what is required to assure adequate healthcare coverage.
The prevalence of coronary artery disease is alarming and will be number one cause for death and disability that can have a devastating economic impact. The prevalence of Diabetes, HIV/AIDS, Mental Health, Cancer and Nutritional & Infectious Diseases also pose a grave challenge.
AAPI would like to partner with union and state governments, NGOs and Foundations in improving the healthcare of the masses. The AAPI Global Healthcare Summit can be an answer to prevent those dire consequences on the economy and social fabrics and what we are starting today can be a true global partnership at much larger scale. "We deliberated on some of the issues of clinical relevance to develop a plan and specific recommendations to implement projects that are significant and yet economically viable and have a potential for broader scope."
"Based on our experience and feedback from a strategic planning session, the 2010 Summit was the first truly Global Healthcare Summit that focused on India with the inclusion of BAPIO and physicians of Indian origin in the world, AAPI will continue to be the lead organizer working with Indian organizations," he said.
Dr. Vinod K. Shah met with US President Barack Obama in Washington recently and pleaded for increased residency slots for medical graduates while extending AAPI's support to his healthcare reforms.
Dr. Ajeet Singhvi, president-elect of AAPI, chaired the strategic discussion panel of the summit, said a separate panel of experts deliberated a concrete plan of practical action to combat H1N1 virus and ways to involve global experts to tackle the global endemic. The deliberations of the previous two Indo-US Healthcare summits have created awareness with AIMS and other medical universities starting post graduate course in emergency medicine with the help and guidance of US experts in the field, he added. The physicians also chalked out a definitive plan to use Health Information Technology as a tool to improve efficiency, effectiveness in delivery and access to care. The physicians also discussed on how to make use of profits from medical tourism to help the poor get better treatment in India, he said.
India is on the way to become diabetes capital of the world and brings with it cardio vascular diseases. The Summit will discuss strategies to educate, prevent and manage the disease with the help of Government of India. Recommendations from the previous Summits would be used to create an effective module. AAPI and Johnson & Johnson are leading the efforts along with Indian Academy of Pediatrics to reduce Infant Mortality which came in for praise from the Government of India.
Encouraging Indian medical universities to start a certificate program in allergy and immunology, tackling malnutrition problems, Vitamin- D deficiency, and mother and child healthcare initiatives, setting up of health desk at hospitals for better patient management, cancer prevention and awareness will be some of the deliberations at the Summit.
Johnson and Johnson along with Pfizer has been a key supporter of the Summit from its inception and believe the company can make a difference to help improve access, quality and delivery of healthcare system.