Medical 2009

Expo on Medical Equipment

With almost 3,000 visitors attending Medicall 2009, the expo bridged the gap between the buyer and user and managed to bring them together on one single platform

K Subburaj, Principal Secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu, inaugurating Medicall 2009

The secretary checking out the Chinese stalls

Medicall 2010 will be held in Hyderabad

Medicall 2009, India's largest medical equipment expo, was launched at Chennai at the Chennai Trade Centre on July 31, 2009. In this three-day expo, more than 250 exhibitors from all over India and China displayed their latest equipment. In addition, they also conducted a seminar on hospital management and patient safety issues.

Recently, Tamil Nadu Government has announced a medical insurance scheme to benefit one crore poor families. This scheme would enable the poor people to avail the medical facilities free-of-cost in private hospitals also. Three hundred private hospitals are already approved by the Government to provide facilities. This has exerted pressure on the private hospitals to increase their facilities. This expo comes at a time, when private hospitals are in the lookout for competitive world class products.

Said Dr S Manivannan, CEO, Medicall 2009, "This is the fourth year of Medicall. In fact, people are now fondly calling this expo as 'hospital needs' supermarket. We have tried to give a platform which gives A to Z requirement of a hospital. We experienced almost 3,000 visitors coming to our show. We also organised interesting seminars for the doctors who are coming here."

The seminars that spanned for three days were on 'Best CSSD Practices', ‘Hospital Construction’ and 'Patient Safety'.

One of the speakers on 'Best CSSD practices', S Jawaharlal, Chief Hospital Administration, SRMC, Chennai, said, "Many a times people in healthcare do not give enough importance to CSSD. The outcome of a good sterilisation department is safety for patient and safety for staff. You need to have good lighting and adequate moving space. We desired that CSSD needs to be a prime priority and hence did not utilise our large space for any other unit but only to provide sufficient space, as it is a very important factor in managing CSSD management." He further added, "Ninety per cent of hospitals in India do not insist that their staff wear goggles. But in our hospital, we have made it mandatory as you are handling with a lot of chemicals and an accidental spill can damage the eyes permanently." The organisers felt that patient safety is very important aspect in hospital practice and hence felt the need to conduct a seminar on the same issue, thereby inviting prominent experts from the field.

New Features

A glimpse of the stall of Express Healthcare

Phoenix Medical Systems stall at the expo

More than 3,000 visitors attended the expo

Patient beds on display

This year's show had interesting products like new ambulances introduced by Tata Motors, new furnitures manufactured in India and infection-resistant medical garments. This was the first time that Chinese and Taiwanese exhibitors participated in this show. They were displaying various types of monitors and other equipment needed for mother-and-child-care.

Another driving factor for Medicall was the fact that all the Southern states have introduced a health insurance scheme which caters to people below poverty line which amounts to five to six crore people. With Government's support, they will be able to afford quality healthcare in private hospitals as well. This would essentially mean a rise in the number of private beds and Medicall aims to act as a one-stop-shop for all their equipment.

The slew of upcoming health cities serving national and international patients would again benefit events like Medicall. One of the Chinese exhibitors, Ziye Sui, International Marketing Head, Lepo Medical Technologies, said, "This is the first time that we are participating in Medicall and the experience has been good. The exhibition is organised quite well. We are very happy with the organisers and it is a very good conference."

Patient Safety

Talking about the seminar on 'Patient Safety', that took place on day three, Dr Mahesh Vakamudi, COO, HOD—Department of Anaesthesia and Critical Care Unit, highlighted some hard facts to an attentive audience. "Nearly two to five million patients are treated for pressure ulcers in the US. HAI doubles the mortality and morbidity of a patient, especially in critical care. It also spirals into huge costs for the hospital. It is estimated that in the US, it costs the hospitals $37.6 billion per year, and point to be noted is that it is preventable. To all those people for whom quality seems costly need to know that average cost of pressure ulcer is $2731 extra per patient," he said. He continued, "One out of every four treated in the ICU will acquire HAI during their hospital stay, as per WHO reports. It leads to 90,000 deaths every year. And it is sad to know that atleast three out of four deaths could be prevented." The main focus of the topic was to highlight the fact that healthcare practices need a paradigm shift in the thought-process. "We need to change the attitude of 'To err is human," said Dr Vakamudi.

Medicallab

Another addition in this year's event was Medicallab, where different exhibitors showcased their equipment targeted for laboratory owners and big hospital labs. It is estimated that the total Indian market for IVD equipment and reagents is Rs 6.75 billion ($147 million) and it is expected to grow at the rate of 25 per cent annually. Apparently, there is no other medical fair that focuses on laboratory equipment. "Hospitals are moving towards accreditations and also attracting international patients. All these developments have accelerated the growth of this segment. Medicallab will cater to the demands of this segment," said Dr Manivannan.

Dr A Murugnathan, Member, Medical Council of India and the Governing Member of MGR Medical University commented heartily about the expo as follows, "Three hundred private hospitals have been approved by the Tamil Nadu Government through their insurance scheme, which means more number of cases will be registered. This would mean that the private hospital has to upgrade its technology and equipment to be able to take care of the extra load. This Medicall exhibition will be a real good 'super-market' with everything under-one-roof. It is a very good networking site to see which are the latest equipment that has come in healthcare technology."

A Good Platform

India has a good pool of doctors but it is unlike the US, where the doctors have to upgrade themselves to the latest technology, attend CMEs and so on. In India, a doctor, after getting his/ her license continues to practice for as long as 20 years. But the problem is that technology becomes obsolete very soon and moving at such a fast pace that what was looked upon with amazement three years ago has become ordinary stuff in today's times. Hence, these kinds of exhibitions go a long way in understanding the latest technologies and innovation happening in the field of medicine.

After four consecutive shows held in Chennai, the organisers are raring to go and will now move out of Chennai territory. Medicall 2010 will now be held in Hyderabad. Express Healthcare was the media partner for the event.

EH News Bureau