Bengaluru: The Ramaiah Memorial Hospital (RMH) in Bengaluru has entered a partnership with the New York-based Mount Sinai Health System, aimed at upgrading services across domains to global standards – from clinical trials to innovation to quality assurance.
A day after the official announcement, Dr Samin Sharma, Director of the Cardiovascular Clinical Institute at Mount Sinai, spoke with DH about the collaboration and its larger objectives. India’s preparedness in addressing its high incidence of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and its adoption of AI in healthcare systems were also among the talking points. Excerpts from the interview:
What are the focus areas and timelines marked for the partnership?
The specialty areas in focus will include oncology, cardiology, urology, and neurosciences. Raising the quality of services to international standards was an important objective for RMH in pursuing this partnership. We’ve been showing them our technologies, skillsets, quality control practices and student exchange systems for over a year. This is a ten-year partnership that will involve setting up of infrastructure and detailed training; it will take time. The plan is to identify the tangibles and review the progress made every few months.
This being a collaborative exercise, what does Mount Sinai expect to gain from its India entry?
We have multiple international collaborations with countries including China and Peru. This is the first such arrangement in India. It does extend Mount Sinai’s global presence and also presents an opportunity to our trainees to come to India and spend some time here. I know many students who want to visit India to understand tropical diseases better. So we are looking at student exchange programmes as a takeaway as well.
How integral is research to this partnership?
Apart from healthcare services, we are looking at research as a focus area. At Mount Sinai, we do extensive early-stage clinical trials. RMH has a centre dedicated to research; it can become a hub of these trials. Researchers in RMH can have access to the facilities at Mount Sinai. Video access also makes it easier for the people here to understand practices Mount Sinai follows – for instance, in quality assurance meetings, grand rounds, and lectures.
The WHO estimates that one in the world’s five CVD deaths happen in India. What do you see as the gaps here?
Until recently, the lack of healthcare was a critical issue. People with heart conditions are also found delaying medical intervention because they don’t get them diagnosed in time – these factors have contributed to bad outcomes. I believe that the economic factors have a larger role to play than the quality of available healthcare. Now, with the government taking the lead in health insurance schemes, I’m hoping that access will no longer be an issue. With widespread adoption of these schemes, I expect to see evidence of decreasing incidence in the next few years. Universal health coverage will be an important step in this direction.
How are India’s healthcare systems positioned to adopt AI?
Top hospitals have already brought AI into their systems. The pace at which the adoption happens globally is also important; unlike in the past, it doesn’t take much time. I see a surge in adoption as the technologies become more refined. In rural areas, AI tools can significantly improve interventions like the detection of heart attacks with ECG readings.