It is a step towards easing the intensive care beds shortage that was witnessed during the second wave of COVID-19
State-run Krishnarajendra Hospital (KR Hospital) in Mysore has upgraded 35 general beds to step-down ICUs to facilitate critical care.
A 24 x 7 central surveillance cell has been set up in the hospital so that health workers can remotely monitor multiple patients from the Gynecological and Surgical ICU departments, which were earlier monitored manually only every two hours.
KR Hospital is one of the largest affiliated hospitals of Mysore Medical College and Research Institute (MMCRI) in Mysore district with a total bed capacity of over 1,300. It was designated a COVID-19 hospital last year.
This upgrade has been done as part of MillionICU, an initiative that addresses the shortage of ICU beds and staff in public hospitals. It provides critical care facilities for over 1,000 patients over the next three months.
CP Nanjaraj, Dean and Director, MMCRI, Nanjundaswamy, Medical Superintendent, KR Hospital, HG Manjunath from the Department of Anesthesiology, Sunita, Professor and HOD, Department of Medicine, and Mudit Dandavate, CEO and Co-Founder, Doozy, were present during the launch.
In Karnataka, MillionICU has upgraded Victoria Hospital, Charaka Hospital, Jayanagar General Hospital, Mysore District Hospital, BRIMMS Bidar, KIMS Hubli and SIMS Shivamogga and plans to install 500 more healthcare equipment in the coming months.
The initiative aims to help upgrade hospital infrastructure that went beyond limits during the second wave of COVID-19.
“Learning from the experience of dealing with a pandemic, hospitals across the country are now preparing to monitor a large number of patients in real time. Hospitals are looking for new technologies that can cover more patients for monitoring and treatment, helping healthcare workers better manage time and resources. MillionICU supports the urgent need to strengthen long-term public health infrastructure and make quality health services available, accessible and affordable to the vast majority of the population in India,” said a press release.
The initiative was launched by contactless remote health monitoring startup Doozy, with the goal of enabling public hospitals to tackle the COVID-19 crisis in the short term and drive rapid, long-term transformation of public healthcare infrastructure. It aims to help upgrade critical care infrastructure in many government hospitals.
“MillionICU seeks to upgrade the critical care infrastructure in the country. It provides an opportunity to government hospitals to use technology to rapidly scale up the required HDUs and ICUs. The start-up has set a target of setting up 50,000 step-down ICU beds in the next 12 months and taking this to 1 million in the next 3 years. 32 such hospitals in 20 districts of the country have already benefited from this initiative.
Dozee was started in 2015 by IIT graduates Mudit Dandawate and Gaurav Parchani and has raised over Rs 63 crore so far. She has been awarded grants from the Government of India by BIRAC, SINE IIT Bombay, ACT and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the release said.
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