MAKE HEALTH CARE A NATIONAL PRIORITY

Interview DR PRATHAP C. REDDYChairman, Apollo Hospitals

- POOJA BIRAIA JAISWAL

Q.Apollo Hospitals has emerged unscathed during the pandemic and also significantly rebounded. What helped you hold up against the tide?

A/ We realised the implications of the pandemic and designed Project Kavach to break the chain through interventions at every stage: detection, testing, isolation and treatment. The goal was to not use hospital beds for people with minimum symptoms. This year, we extended the project to cover vaccination, post-Covid management and also focused on using digital tools for continuity of care of our existing patients, especially those with non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

We launched Apollo 247 to offer virtual and telephonic consultations with doctors at our hospitals so that patients could access care from their homes and hospitals could focus on in-patients. Post the consultation, the patient could get the prescription and delivery of medicines and schedule collection of samples for any diagnostic lab tests. This was particularly beneficial for expectant mothers, those with chronic diseases and for geriatric care.

We developed a ready reckoner of best practice guidelines, The Red Book, which encapsulates a standard protocol of Covid management. We set up stringent iron curtain infection control protocols to separate Covid and non-Covid patients in the hospital so that the latter do not avoid visiting the hospital for fear of catching an infection.