Medvarsity Plans To Associate With Healthcare Domain Bodies To Provide Health Education Courses

Tell us about the current state of India Medical education system?

India has the unique distinction of producing the largest number of medical graduates in the world. While over 65,000 students graduate with an MBBS degree every year, we are still woefully short of meeting the WHO standards on population to doctors ratio. The doctor patient ratio in the country is 1 to 1674 (approx.), which is way lower than that advised by the WHO (World Health Organization). 

Additionally, our qualitative performance is nowhere close to international standards with the shortfall of specialized and trained medical graduates. A total of 28,000 post graduate seats further limit the opportunities to create specialized clinical workforce for a large population with critical health conditions. This indicates a huge disparity between the number of doctors that the country needs and even more so for the rural population. 

Owing to this, the biggest question of the decade arises, what are we doing, as a nation to meet the growing need of the rural doctors and specialized physicians? How do we train them to be professionals of global standards along with meeting the local urban and rural needs? 

How has the healthcare learning changed over the times?

As we know, India has the largest number of medical colleges in the world and is also seen as a growing market for medical tourism.  At the same time, it’s unfortunate that a majority of its own population does not have access to basic healthcare. With a decent growth in the health centers across the country, there is a large need for skilled professionals to run these, to ensure smooth operations and expansion of the industry. India, has been making a shift to being tech dependent over the years and online platforms have emerged as a result of it. These are providing ways for the healthcare community to stay updated through e-learning, online materials, videos, webinars, simulation learning and more. Additionally, they are being highly accepted which is proving beneficial for the healthcare ecosystem in providing specialized skilled professionals for the nation. It is exciting to see where healthcare learning will go next from here. 

What is the need for healthcare innovation?

Healthcare, as an industry can be quite challenging, when it comes to innovation, as there are many factors that make change difficult. Healthcare innovators across the globe, are trying to make enhancements which would be beneficial for not just the companies and practitioners, but also patients. Aspects such as, regulations, ethical standards, research, policies and dated systems are some concerns that need to be addressed to make change possible. However, for the industry to grow as a whole, we need innovation solutions that are viable, practical and achievable. 

We can make a compelling argument that healthcare will experience exceptional innovation, with time.  Previously, most of the innovation in the healthcare industry have been around medical devices, be it diagnostic scanners or surgical robots. These have done great for the industry, but are very narrowly focused. Going forward, innovation in areas such as personalized care, tech-based care models, better organizational designs will be concentrated on.

Technology induced innovation in healthcare makes it more dynamic and gives unconventional access to medicine for those communities that lack it. With internet being a part of daily life for a major chunk of India's population, 35% approximately, healthcare providers and patients are empowering themselves. Digital innovation in healthcare is exponentially growing over time and is expected to have a compound annual growth rate of 23%, by the year 2020. This could mean better outcomes in treatments with better communication between doctors/caregivers and patients. 

What are the courses that Medvarsity offers and what is the eligibility for taking them?

Medvarsity’s goal is to impact healthcare through education. We have over 150 courses spread across various clinical & non-clinical specializations. With accreditations from some of the leading universities internationally and clinical partnerships with 60% of the top corporate hospitals in India, we offer our students access to best in medical learning and the opportunity to train with the very best in the industry. With over 45,000 graduates across our varied courses, our alumni work at almost all the top healthcare facilities in the country today.

Medvarsity has courses specially designed for MBBS Doctors and AYUSH. We also have specific courses for Nurses, Dentists, Physiotherapists, Dietitians, Medical Technicians, and Healthcare Managers. We have courses starting at Rs. 2000 and going up all the way to Rs. 10 lakhs, which also include internationally accredited programs.

What is your flagship course and how does it impact the healthcare industry?

The flagship courses of Medvarsity such as Fellowship in Emergency Medicine (FEM), Masterclass in Diabetes Mellitus, Fellowships in Clinical Cardiology, Fellowship in Critical Care Medicine, and MBA in Hospital and Healthcare Management are aligned to meet the key need areas of the healthcare industry. Fresh MBBS graduates with just one-year of internship may not be industry ready to handle the clinical duties in certain specialist departments such as emergency medicine, critical care, and cardiology. Our courses are designed to provide the knowledge and clinical exposure required to fulfil the job responsibilities in these departments. 

Healthcare industry is booming in India and each year the growth rates are above 15% CAGR. The hospital industry is expected to touch USD 133 billion by 2023, while the healthcare industry as a whole is expected to reach USD 372 billion by 2022. Healthcare has become one of India's largest sectors both in terms of revenue and employment. Market research reports indicate that there are close to 2 lakh hospitals in India, but we have less than a hundred MD-Emergency medicine seats. All our FEM students are recruited by tertiary care hospitals to manage their emergency departments. Cardiovascular diseases are the number one reason for mortality in India. Students who complete our clinical cardiology courses are picked up by major hospitals to work as residents in cardiology department. India is emerging as the diabetes capital of the world with 73-million patients having diabetes and the students who finish our diabetes course are playing a major role in managing the increasing burden of diabetes in India. Students completing our management courses are finding opportunities as managers and administrators across the spectrum of healthcare services such as small and large clinics, hospitals, nursing homes, and medical colleges, apart from allied industries such as health insurance, medical KPOs, pharmaceutical and medical device companies. In summary, we are meeting the workforce requirements of the rapidly growing healthcare industry with our courses. 

Has e-learning medical platform been accepted by the upcoming healthcare students and present faculty?

Compared to the other industries, e-learning in the healthcare is still a pretty new concept, whereas in the western countries it is more widely accepted. However, over the last decade, medical e-learning has picked up pace with players like Medvarsity driving it and those involved (upcoming and experienced professionals) being ready for the change. 

The students and the faculty of the healthcare industry are understanding the need for up skilling themselves to provide better care. Over the years, Medvarsity has observed that the acceptance is definitely not age specific, as we have students & faculty from their late 20’s through 60’s and all of them have adopted to online education. Our teaching faculty, who are mostly specialists in their areas, are in favor of the change, as this provides more reach, nationally and globally. We make use of online content, webinars and simulation training to train healthcare professionals & more of such methodologies.. 

What are your plans on expanding this unique learning model further for targeted students?

Over the last eighteen years, we have played a major role in bridging the skill gaps in the healthcare sector through our educational initiatives. From initially having only Apollo Hospitals as clinical training location, we have expanded our training network across India to approximately 100 locations including Columbia Asia Hospitals, Max Healthcare, MaxCure Hospitals, SUT hospitals, SDMH, to name a few. 

We plan to become the go-to platform for Continuing Professional Development courses in the healthcare domain. Major corporate hospital chains have partnered with us to develop engaging CPD courses for their doctors and nurses. Our learning platform has also been used to run clinical knowledge networks that have brought together 44 hospitals and close to 3800 doctors from across the country on the largest virtual grand rounds format. We plan to expand these offerings to various hospitals across India. We will offer our expertise in tech-enabled learning to all healthcare entities in India. In addition, we plan to partner with medical associations and other professional bodies in the healthcare domain to offer a wide variety of health education courses. We have partnered with Health Education England to bring some medical e-learning courses developed by NHS-UK to India. Going forward, we will bring more such international course offerings to Indian healthcare professionals.