Samueli School Distinguished Lecture: The Paradox of our Age: "More Medicines but Less Healthiness" (His holiness the Dalai Lama)

Abstract: The burden of disease in India and the country's geoeconomic conditions require a solution that focuses on health promotion rather than solely on disease management. Saha founded a social impact enterprise called JSV Innovations Pvt. Ltd. in 2011. The company works to train rural youth as health care workers and develop a financially sustainable model of primary care delivery at the last mile, while leveraging innovative technologies to achieve this objective.

Saha now has seven training centers across five districts, which have trained more than 1500 rural, economically disadvantaged youth. Two rural primary care centers (kiosks) have been opened, allowing trained local women to deliver primary care with the help of software that uses clinical algorithms and a team of remote doctors. The government is helping Saha to expand the network to more than 400 kiosks over the next two to three years. His organization has formed multiple partnerships with knowledge and technology leaders across the world who share the goal of better care at lower cost for more people.

The company's experience on the ground has identified the need for multiple technologies that work in extreme point-of-care (EPOC) conditions but deliver precise quality data at a significant cost advantage.

Saha will discuss the eco-system he has built in India, including: a large technology transfer center at IIT to incubate and train entrepreneurs to manufacture quality EPOC equipment; a 400-bed super-speciality hospital at IIT as part of its medical education and research system; and operations in a 150-bed public hospital in a remote rural area. Discussions are ongoing to set up a similar center in Kolkata with government support.

Bio: Dr. Satadal Saha graduated from Calcutta Medical College in India as a general surgeon (and university gold medalist) and trained further at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Saha is now a visiting professor at the School of Medical Science & Technology at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, and project director for its medical college and super-speciality hospital. He is a practicing surgeon with special interest in laparoscopic and colorectal surgery.

On his return to India in the late 90s, he and his team built four speciality hospitals in different districts of West Bengal. The hospitals cater to a predominantly rural population with affordable super-speciality services.

Saha served the International Finance Corp. (of World Bank Group) for two years as an industry expert, focusing on improvement of operational efficiency of hospitals in towns in Northeast India. He also worked as chief India advisor for two major health-care-focused private equity funds concentrating on profit-with-purpose investments across India and South Asia.

Hosted by Gregory Washington, Stacey Nicholas Dean of Engineering

Please RSVP to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Satadal