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Kanav Kahol, Head of Affordable Health Technologies, Public Health Foundation, India, believes data will help doctors and policy makers provide better health care.

In India, the doctor to patient ratio is 1:1700 in urban areas while the WHO standard is 1:1000. There is a gap of almost 70%. In rural areas this ratio is as low as 1:50,000. As rural to urban migration increases with growing cities in next 15 years, the need for more efficient and better quality public health care in both urban and rural areas will also increase.

Kanav Kahol, Head of Affordable Health Technologies, Public Health Foundation, India, was the guest lecturer on the panel “Data Deluge: Can Policy Follow Science?” at the annual Salzburg Global June Board Meeting, People and Power: Will We Recognize the World in 2030? and discussed the power of data in enabling doctors, front line health workers, and policy makers to provide better health care.

“With the dire situation in rural areas where doctor to patient ratio is as low as 1:50,000 in some areas, you are left with the daunting task of enabling quality health care in rural area. Thereby avoiding overcrowding in urban India and urban India facilities. To do that India invested in front line health workers but left them with lot of tasks to do and did not enable them. Enabling them through technology is what we have focused on.”

According to Kahol, the data generated by technology and innovation like Swasthya Slate, a device that can carry out 33 diagnostic tests, has the power to redefine the science of medicine. Health care is primarily driven by the expertise of the doctors but Kahol says that is because people report directly to doctors.

“I think that is changing quite dramatically. I think we are producing so much of data on a daily basis and as long as privacy concerns are actually met, I think we have tremendous opportunity where data may act in an active or prophylactic manner to enable the quality of health care that we have not achieved yet...

“When people come to a hospital, they are sick. For the first time we can get information on how people are when they are healthy.”

He estimates that by 2030, data driven interventions will increase prophylactic approach to health care and will also enable medical professionals to document what it actually means to be healthy. However data mining is not enough.

Extensive data is already being collected through innovation and technology but it is not translating in to effective policies. Kahol considers the lack of conversation and collaboration between technology providers and policy makers as the biggest hurdle, a gap that needs to be filled fast.

“I think rapid conversations need to happen between policy makers and technologists. It is not happening fast enough. Why is it that the development sector and the policy sector is always a receiver of technology than a creator of technology? Yes, we all have our domain expertise, but there is a fundamental flaw in that system that people who are making technologies are not actually getting a good sense of what the policy world needs.”

One of the easiest and most effective solution to the problem, Kahol suggests, could be that there are “translators on both sides of the aisle. You have policy makers who work in technology sphere and you also have technology makers who work in policy sphere.”

Even though big data has empowered thinkers to be problem solvers and sparked change, there are still several moral and ethical issues that have to be considered and laws need to be developed to protect the privacy of an individual. Kahol firmly believes it is the “moral obligation of the development sector to get people in a room and discuss about this issue.”

“It is not happening enough. It worries me. We are waiting. We are doing what we have done with technology that we are followers. We are not leaders. I want the development sector to lead the way in to technology...

"We need to understand our duty to the world to play a role in how these [technologies] are being used in an ethical and a moral manner.”

He credits Salzburg Global Seminar in bringing different players together and encouraging an open global discussion on this. Something he deems important in helping people like him grow and develop further.

“It is fundamental to provide a bird’s eye view... Salzburg Global is essentially an old school wonderful idea of putting lots of smart people in a room and asking them questions on how would you get this to work. It is a beautiful environment that allows free thinking. An honest dialogue that helps people like me grow.”