Bengaluru / Imphal, NFAPost: Chief Minister of Manipur N Biren Singh will inaugurate on Tuesday the 10BedICU rollout in Manipur, an ambitious project to create ICU critical infrastructure across each of the 16 districts in the state.
10BedICU, a PPP (private-public-partnership) project between the state government and a group of NGOs, provides state-of-the-art ICU medical equipment, Pandemic/ICU management cloud software platform as well as a cutting-edge Tele ICU module.
The 10-Bed-ICU (10BedICU.org) also envisages live training module to train doctors, nurses and ANMs on the ever-changing pandemic.
This transformational project that was conceived during Covid wave-2 spread, has the potential to save the lives of thousands especially in remote and rural areas, who need access to life threatening critical care and ICU support.
In Manipur, the Tele ICU Hub has been created at JNIMS in Imphal, consisting of large 4k TV monitors, and it will connect with all the 16 district hospitals over broadband internet. remote hospitals where state-of-the-art ICU medical (including AI Ventilators) has been provided, high-definition ceiling cameras are used for patient monitoring and interaction with specialist at the JNIMS hub. This entire platform runs on world-class CARE cloud software solution built to manage ICU & Pandemic needs. CARE has been recognized by UN for its effectiveness in managing the pandemic.
10BedICU.org is currently working in 8 states of Telangana, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Manipur, Assam, Meghalaya, Sikkim, and Nagaland, has deployed over 200 10BedICU wards (2000 ICU beds).
Srikanth Nadhamuni, a veteran entrepreneur, and the founder CTO of the Aadhaar project and Chairman of 10BedICU, conceived 10BedICU.org after receiving desperate SOS calls from friends and family for ventilator beds during Covid Wave 2. Dr. Sudarshan founder Karuna Trust, a key NGO partner of 10BedICU, pointed out that the people in rural areas were disproportionately affected due to poor ICU capacity.
Besides the lack of critical care equipment, 10BedICU Chairman Srikanth Nadhamuni said the biggest issue for these remote hospitals is the lack of specialist doctors and nurses.
“Using high-definition cameras, advanced CARE software for transmitting data from 5-para monitors and other equipment and Whatsapp Video communications, serious cases can now be referred to central “hub” hospitals where specialists can quickly zoom into patients, examine and stabilize them without costly and often lethal transportation,” said 10BedICU Chairman Srikanth Nadhamuni.
He also said for locals who dread visiting the city with unknown costs and other serious hassles including a huge impact on the wages of the caregivers, this is a big boon.
“These desperate calls for ventilator beds made me realize the magnitude of the problem, esp. in rural areas without ICU wards, so I started calling friends and NGO partners and we started working towards a systemic scalable solution. All this happened completely on zoom calls due to Covid restrictions and we ended up creating, what it today a national project,” said 10BedICU Chairman Srikanth Nadhamuni.
He said it was clear that we needed to work with government hospitals to improve ICU capacity in rural areas.
“We also needed to move fast, so we partnered with State govts, NGOs and generous donors including Vinod Khosla, the renowned entrepreneur and billionaire venture capitalist from the Silicon Valley, who provided funds to support 100 hospitals. Several others including Crypto Relief, Give India and HDFC Bank supported 10BedICU with funding,” said Srikanth Nadhamuni who is also Chairman of 10BedICU,” said 10BedICU Chairman Srikanth Nadhamuni.
The Swiss Ventilator manufacturer which supplies AI ventilators to the project also decided to donate a number of ventilators to the project. They are also collaborating with 10BedICU in standardizing ventilator protocols across all the hospitals.
10BedICU Chairman Srikanth Nadhamuni said 10BedICU aims to create an ICU ward in every district of the country for critical care supported by high quality medical equipment, trained staff, digital hospital platform and Tele ICUs.
Commenting on the 10BedICU initiative, Khosla Ventures Founder Partner Vinod Khosla said there is a need for cutting edge technology and network access to improve healthcare in rural India.
“10BedICU’s vision of connecting the urban centres, which have better facilities and specialists, to rural/taluka hospitals using technology is a practical way to deliver critical care to rural India,” said Khosla Ventures Founder Partner Vinod Khosla.
About 10BedICU.org
10BedICU is a partnership of 2 NGOs eGovernments Foundation and Karuna Trust. Currently we are deploying ICUs in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Manipur, Karnataka, Assam, Meghalaya, Sikkim and Nagaland.
Critical Problems Addressed by 10BedICU
1. Absence of government run ICUs or HDUs (High Dependency Units) with much-needed equipment like 5-para monitors, ventilators, defibrillators, etc. that are standard in private urban hospitals.
2. Acute shortage of specialist staff in government hospitals in rural areas since most specialist doctors and nurses prefer an urban posting.
3. Even if the staff is present, training doctors and nurses in govt. Hospitals in critical care ICU protocol and equipment is a huge challenge.
The 10BedICU Solution rests on 5 key pillars
1. High quality Medical Equipment
2. TeleICU
3. CARE pandemic/ICU Mgmt Software Platform
4. Training of Doctors and Nurses
5. Community Participation for Accountability
Website: 10BedICU.org
