Philips India is planning to develop a slew of advanced medical technologies to counter inadequacy of intensive care units (ICUs) and qualified intensivists across hospitals in the country. The medical equipment major sees that advanced medical devices like the electrocardiogram (ECG) and patient monitors would improve the quality of critical care in India along with doubling of ICU beds from 1,60,000 to 3,00,000 over the next 3-5 years.

The company’s latest Efficia range of portable ECG and defibrillator/monitors is designed and developed offers clinicians enhanced definitive diagnosis, monitoring, and therapy even in remote areas to prevent complications. It would continue to support in the public private partnership efforts to ensure these equipment are installed at government hospitals.

In India, Philips manufacturers only Cath Lab and mobile surgery C-arm at its Pune facility and is viewing to look at more products to be produced in the country.

India is a key hub for R&D. The Philips Innovation Campus, Bengaluru is home to several medical device research efforts which are eventually manufactured at its global production plants which include the just introduced hand-held ECG and tele-ICU. The Make in India and Innovate in India initiatives of the Union government could enhance options to design and manufacture here, Sameer Garde, president, Philips Healthcare, South Asia told Pharmabiz at the sidelines of the 21st Annual Conference of Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine.

Critical care units are the core of Indian hospitals and account for 40 percent of the expenditure in patient care. The country needs homogenized care across private and public hospitals. Of the 1.6 million hospital beds in India 1,60,000 are ICU beds. The metros including Hyderabad are reported to have 5 beds for 1,000 people. India needs another 6,50,000 beds of which 300,000 should be only ICU covering Tier II and Tier III towns.

There is a clear need for robust technology and trained intensivists to provide specialised, close and constant care, he adds.

“We have been ensuring access to quality care with a range of technologies for healthy living, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, recovery and home care covering for both urban and remote settings. These include Philips Airfryer for healthy living-preventive care which controls 80 per cent of fats in  fried products and image guided therapies for faster diagnosis and targeted therapies, he adds.

Currently India has less than 5 ICU beds for one lakh population which is a poor representation compared to Germany and Portugal which have 40 beds and 20 beds respectively for one lakh patients. The 20 per cent of the beds in hospitals in the corporate sector are in the ICU wing and needs to increase to 32-40 per cent going by the requirement. The estimated investment incurred for hospitals to set-up one ICU bed is around Rs. 48 lakh, according to a panel of medical experts representing the Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine.