Health Department partners with C-CAMP to strengthen public healthcare

The collaboration will facilitate identification, implementation and field integration of innovative health technologies in the State for augmenting infrastructure and healthcare delivery across primary to tertiary healthcare centres in urban and rural areas

To strengthen Karnataka’s public health settings through indigenous and innovative health solutions, the State Health Department has entered into a partnership with Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP), a deep-tech innovation hub based out of Bengaluru.

Health Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao, who announced the partnership, said the collaboration will facilitate identification, implementation and field integration of innovative health technologies in the State for augmenting infrastructure and healthcare delivery across primary to tertiary healthcare centres in urban and rural areas. 

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for this partnership was recently signed by Health Commissioner D. Randeep and Director-CEO of C-CAMP Taslimarif Saiyed.

Diagnostics and screening

The Minister, who visited the C-CAMP innovation ecosystem on Wednesday, said improved diagnostics and screening at the last-mile is vital for prevention of disease and early detection. “We are prioritising these two areas as a means to boost health outcomes, while also nurturing high-quality home grown technologies. This MoU will be an immediate step in this direction,” he said.

C-CAMP has over the years supported close to 300 deep tech innovations in healthcare with focus in areas such as maternal and child health, non-communicable diseases, infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance, diagnostics, digital health and so on. In this partnership with the Health department, the focus will shift to implementation of these market-ready and relevant health technologies, he said.

Mr. Randeep the partnership will enable introduction of indigenous and contextual health solutions for the State. “The aim is to strengthen health outreach programmes and further the doorstep healthcare initiatives with innovative field use technologies, utilising improved screening, diagnostics and other health interventions,” he said.

Naveen Bhat, State Mission Director, National Health Mission (NHM), said this partnership will also be helpful to address the unmet needs in the field in Karnataka and give the technology boost to the health sector. “Through this  agreement, C-CAMP will work in close coordination with the State NHM and Health department to identify the critical gaps in the public healthcare settings. The initiatives will range from pilot programmes to deployment at scale of indigenously developed innovative solutions, he added.