Bridging gaps in healthcare skilling

Fueling Aspirations: Empowering youth through technology & skilling

It is estimated that the requirement for allied healthcare professionals in India is nearly 6.5 million as against a supply of less than 300,000. According to National Skill Development Corporation, by 2018 the healthcare technician demand-supply gap in India will be 445,000, an 84% shortfall. To address this, there is a need for a 3 step intervention

1. Rethink the current education/skill development model to train high quality healthcare workers faster

2. Equip this new generation of healthcare workers with technology & tools that support them in the field to handle a wide variety of healthcare challenges. 

3. Develop AI tools to provide faster and more reliable diagnosis.

To address the first step, GE launched a Skill Creation program, in partnership with Tata Trusts, to train 10,000 youth in various technical areas of healthcare over a three-year period across India. 

With 42 centers in 17 states, the program focuses on bridging the skill gap in healthcare technical or operating staff. The one-year courses help the students graduate as X-Ray, radiography, medical equipment, anesthesia, operation theater and cardiac care technicians, as well as diabetic education counselors. The program has enrolled over 2500 students, with a male:female ratio of 58:42, an average monthly stipend of Rs 4000, and average starting salary of Rs 12000 per month, which is ~50% higher than the industry average.

The beneficiaries are from economically weaker backgrounds and GE supports them to achieve gainful employment. The program provides soft loans by Tata Trusts, which they can replay within three years after completing the course, making it a truly sustainable intervention.

One of the most important change that was driven by this program was to revamp the curriculum for training this new generation of healthcare workers. The focus was on skills that are most relevant to the employers thereby providing them with a job ready candidate in 1 year vs traditional 3 year approach. The courses are structured such  that the students can work for a few years and come back for further education. For example, a student can complete a 1 year XRAY course and get employment, subsequently the student can come back to study CT & MRI imaging and eventually be awarded a certification that is equal to a 3 year graduate degree.

With 95% pass percentage, ~80% placement rate and less than 10% dropout rate the program is already proving to be successful.

Now it is time to move to step 2 of the approach. GE is working towards developing a digital solutions that connects these students in the field with a central command center that will act as a guide to these professionals if they need support in discharging their duties anywhere in the country.

The 3rd phase of the project will focus on creating AI based solutions to improve diagnosis capability of healthcare professionals. 

Both second and third phase will go a long way to provide access of healthcare in rural areas of India which faces the most acute shortage of qualified and trained healthcare workers.

- Modular structure of course which encourages students to continuously upgrade their skill set, get job ready faster & boost their earning potential.  

- Faster return on investment both in terms of time and money; especially beneficial for under privileged students.

- Use of technology - Online learning portal (LMS)VR/AR, simulations and mobile app assisted learning & Online Community App

- On demand availability of online experts to help you deliver healthcare services better & faster

- Assessment and certification by government through HSSC which makes the program more acceptable across employer group

Along with existing technology solutions, we are investing in tools like –

Solution allowing a healthcare worker in field to connect to a central command center to get upskilled and get on demand help in executing the required scans. We are investing in VR-based simulation tools where people located remotely can collaborate on medical cases virtually

In future, we would like to invest in AI/ML based solutions that can interpret medical scan images and give preliminary diagnosis in a skill deprived environment.  Eg - A low cost solutions to improve TB detection using a simple image upload of Chest X Ray. 

Our goal is to empower the frontline healthcare workers in remotest part of the world, to provide better health outcomes. Our approach -

Phase 1: Scale up existing solutions (LMS, Simulators, AR/VR Apps) in India to train 4000 students every year. Expand program offerings to more geographies Africa (Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa) & care areas.

Phase 2: Pilot digital command center solution to support healthcare workers in field & VR solution enabling collaboration in virtual reality.

Phase 3: Develop AI/ML based solutions to support diagnosis of disease in remote areas to improve access to highly skilled healthcare professionals. 

The vision is to expand in emerging countries like Africa, ASEAN and Latin America & create capacity to train 10,000 students annually by 2020.

In India, programs aims to train & employ 5000 students in a year. We will focus on students (most of them school dropouts) from under privileged background & women candidates (targeting 50% participation from women).

We aspire to make digital an effective & efficient mode of skilling & develop new solutions as well. We intend to scale up to provide wide range of clinical, technical and management training for community healthcare workers, nurses, technicians & clinicians 

All students and graduates are encouraged to work for a few years and then come back to upskill. Upskilling helps the learner to grow and be eligible for higher paying jobs and ensures continued learning for retention of the candidate in the healthcare space.

Frequent alumni meetings are held to monitor the progress of students as their career progresses. Having an online community and digital learning tools for all career stages will provide us more avenues to reach out and enable seamless interaction. We are partnering with government, academic institutions and other civil society organizations to increase reach. 

For Skill creation - ~2500/year active students in India across 17 states. Augmenting capacity to enroll and graduate 4000/year

Skills up gradations- Currently training ~5000 learners per year across India and Africa. Augmenting capacity to training ~10,000 learners per year through investment in digital technology.

For Skill creation - ~2500/year active students in India across 17 states. 

These students are being places in meaningful white collar jobs in the healthcare sector across the country. Specifically a safe environment for women to work and grow. 

in 3 years we expect to be present in 5 countries with a capacity of training and placing 10,000 students in a year.

Skills up gradations- Currently training ~5000 learners per year across India and Africa. 

In 3 years we hope to increase capacity to train ~20,000 learners per year through our investment in digital technology which is already being piloted.

- Capability in understanding need of various healthcare systems across emerging markets.

- Creating targeted interventions that strengthen the HRH system of the states/countries

- Scaling up solutions by leveraging GE Healthcare presence and relations across a broad range of emerging countries

- Significant capability in digital space to design and develop new solutions for specific healthcare interventions. 

- Packaging of education/skill development as a part of larger GE Healthcare solution to governments (note - most programs are equipment agnostic and learners are encouraged to work on equipment from different manufacturers)

- Partnership with other stakeholders in the ecosystem and leveraging their marketing budgets (eg. pharma companies to train cardiologists in new therapy areas. Again to note that the programs don't promote any drugs but focus on clinical programs)

- Direct student/learner paid model which is becoming increasingly attractive given the proven track record of performance over last 2 years. In this segment the target is to be break even and not profitable.

- Academic institutes tie-ups - direct payment by institute/students who seek skills that make them more employable by healthcare industry.

Technology - partnership with MIT/key technology players to develop digital tools to scale up the solutions that have been successfully deployed in India and few African countries.

Review & Assessment - we welcome the team to evaluate our work and suggest ways to improve and scale models faster. GE's is relatively new in this field and we welcome your experience to help us.

Global connect - we do not want to re-invent the wheel for everything, through this we hope to get access to other breakthrough in the field of healthcare professional skilling which can be leveraged to improve our solutions

1. Governmental support and reforms is key to success of our solutions in healthcare skill creation

2. Adoption of technology and digital tools by healthcare professionals will be one of the biggest challenge that we anticipate

3. Penetration and availability of a stable internet is of paramount importance for us to scale.

4. Access to high quality and reasonably priced content for healthcare training will help us scale faster than where we are today.