Natev 2017: To create ecosystem for health to overcome dual disease burden

NATEv 2017, an annual seminar organized by the Healthcare Federation of India (NATHEALTH) is scheduled to be held on March 24, 2017 in New Delhi. The 4th NATHEALTH Annual Event is a seminal forum for interaction between multi segment stakeholders of Indian Healthcare sector.

The day-long event will see several brainstorming sessions where the health sector's top functionaries, Government officials, Representatives of International organizations such as IFC, innovations in Healthcare and NATHEALTH partners/members would be engaged in meaningful discussions to address the challenges and come out with actionable solutions.

Giving details of the event, Anjan Bose, Secretary General, NATHEALTH said, "the collaborative vision and spirit of NATEv 2017 is expected to result in tangible outcomes in the form a concerted national endeavor to equip ourselves to create a healthcare ecosystem capable of effectively handling the ever rising dual disease burden in times to come."

Apart from Inaugural session, where the policymakers and top representatives of healthcare sector would deliberate on action taken and future roadmap, the seminar would hold five different sessions to discuss and debate on major challenges and priority areas.

The opening session will be followed by the release of two Updates based on "Aarogya Bharat 2025- Whitepaper" (Bain & Company- NATHEALTH) and "Enabling access to long-term finance for healthcare in India" (PwC- NATHEALTH).

"India is currently engaged in battling the dual burden of communicable and non -communicable diseases (NCD), which developed countries, have had to deal with. The government has its own restriction in providing more funds and Indian healthcare still suffers from large gap between supply and demand. Therefore, NATEv 2017 would make efforts to arrive at a roadmap to attract more funds for this critical sector. Therefore we have a dedicated session on "Healthcare Financing and Funding" to think of creative funding like REITS and other viable options," Bose elaborated.

The session would be moderated by Dr. Rana Mehta, Partner Leader Healthcare, Pricewaterhouse Coopers and panelists include Chinta Bhagat (Head Healthcare and India, Balaji, Head India Abraaj Group) Balaji Srinivas, (Abraaj Group) Arjun Gupta (Senior Vice president GIC special Investments), R Venkatesh (MD Temasek Holdings), Sunil Thakur (Director and COO, Quadria Capital Advisors), Ameera Shah (Promoter MD- Metropolis healthcare) and Rajeev Ahuja ( Development Economist).

The funding session would be followed by discussion on four priority areas which have been identified and being worked on by NATHEALTH. These areas include "Public-Private Partnership (PPP), "Health for All- Leveraging Digital India," "Preventive and Wellness" and "Make in India." These sessions would focus on issues and challenges related to these priority areas.

Finally, NATEv 2017, would throw the platform open for a big debate. The final session of the day will witness a brainstorming "Big Debate: Indian Healthcare- a sleeping giant" The debate will focus on how to make India healthy. This session would see participation of senior officials, experts and representatives from both public and private sectors.

The big debate is expected to be a brainstorming session on recent initiatives of the government as well. The proposed issuance of health cards to push universal healthcare, Budgetary allocation for 2017-18, use of new IT based technologies to bridge healthcare gaps, particularly in the rural areas and other initiative would be assessed in right perspective by the stakeholders.