Fortis Healthcare and GE Healthcare have joined hands to provide care to critically ill patients in small towns in India through an electronic remote monitoring programme, CritiNext.
Initially, 34 beds in two small hospitals based in Raipur and Dehradun will be covered by an electronic intensive care unit (eICU) under CritiNext. This will be extended to 500 beds by 2014 in different hospitals across the country.
“In a couple of years, we believe that this will be the accepted standard of care for patients in India and help to save more lives,” Fortis Healthcare CEO, Mr Aditya Vij, said today.
The CritiNext eICU enables a remote hospital to provide advanced consultation, care and monitoring to their critically ill in-patients without having to physically transfer them to super-speciality hospitals.
On being asked about the nature of the partnership between GE and Fortis, Mr Vij said: “GE is co developing this technology, and the software is being provided by GE.”
Commenting on the partnership, GE Healthcare South Asia President & CEO, Mr Terri Bresenham, said: “CritiNext eICU solution is a perfect example of how we can take scarce, quality expertise and through innovation, extend it for better health of more people.”
Two more hospitals are expected to have the CritiNext facility very soon, Fortis Group of Hospitals, CritiNext ED, Mr Amit Varma, said when asked about the immediate plans.
“As part of a national roll-out of this technology, Fortis Healthcare and GE Healthcare aim to deploy the solution connecting a minimum of 500 ICU beds in 20 hospitals by 2014,” he added.