Healthcare 2030: A Peep into the Future - IEEE SSIT 21CW2021

21st Century Norbert Wiener is a conference of activities to reintroduce him and cybernetics to a younger generation. Healthcare 2030 is an important topic in this conference. This session was the only session open to the public at the conference.

When two eminent tech-savvy globally renowned neurosurgeons, a distinguished surgical educator and vascular surgeon, and a leading biomedical engineer working on IT-enabled future-ready Public health solutions get together the results are obvious.

When their combined experience of 170 years has to be summarized into 40 minutes the audience can be assured that this will indeed be pearls of wisdom!

An additional 20 minutes for audience participation will be the icing on the cake.

Prof Ganapathy initially a pioneer in introducing Stereotactic radiosurgery in India is now acknowledged to be a Telemedicine “Guru”. Trained in the BC era his introductory message would be that Global Health is a function of education, literacy, economics, and so on. He strongly believes in what Rudyard Kipling said in the last millennium “What do they know of England, who only England know”.

As a moderator, Prof Ganapathy would set the stage for the health-related discussions to follow. Futurology is a pseudo-science where today’s cutting-edge technology is extrapolated and crystal gazing attempted.

Prof Russell Andrews, a neurosurgeon NASA consultant will share his views on the necessity for changes to make cross-border global surgery a reality. Coordination of resources and organizational changes necessary to help extend surgeons’ reach using technology to reduce surgically preventable deaths will be discussed.

In a world driven by information, Prof Luis Kun will illustrate the challenges that digital exclusion is presenting to do healthcare transformation through ICT-enabled wellness and disease prevention.

Dr Arjun Rajagopalan will point out that technology is only a means to achieve an end and not an end by itself. When one has a hammer everything around looks like a nail – particularly if it is an expensive hammer. Comparing the doctor-patient relationship in the seventies and six decades later will give the audience a truly balanced perspective.

The final 20 minutes discussion with the audience will leave the take-home messages that in healthcare however advanced the technology is, empathizing with the beneficiary should never be forgotten.