During the pandemic, just as hospitals and frontline warriors battled to save the lives of infected patients, medical technology providers played a key role in ensuring that these warriors are equipped with the right technology.
MGM Healthcare is a state-of-the-art 400-bed quaternary care hospital in the heart of Chennai, India. Inaugurated by the Hon. Vice-President of India in July 2019, in a considerably short span of time, MGM Healthcare has established itself as a leader and a national referral centre in some of the flagship clinical programmes of the hospital. The hospital has over 100 critical care beds, 12 operating theatres and has over 250 doctors serving in over 30 departments and 12 Centres of Excellence. Neurosciences, Orthopaedics, Multi-organ Transplantation (Heart, Lung, Liver, Kidney), Cardiac Sciences, Gastro Sciences, Renal Sciences, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Paediatrics and Neonatology, Emergency Medicine, Anaesthesiology and ICU, Radiology and Oncology are the 12 Centres of Excellence.
It’s noteworthy to mention that MGM Healthcare boasts of India’s largest Heart & Lung transplant programme and some of the major milestones over the last year include South Asia’s first biventricular artificial heart implant — Berlin Heart — and is the third centre in the world to have performed a bilateral lung transplant on an individual with COVID-induced damaged lungs. The hospital is also the first USGBC LEED Platinum-certified hospital in India with the highest green rating in Asia.
MGM Healthcare is one of the most technologically advanced healthcare institutions set up in the recent past. The hospital boasts several first-of-its-kind medical equipment in India as well as in Asia — including a wide bore 3 Tesla MRI with in-bore experience and a biplane cath lab for neuro-vascular and cardiac interventions. MGM also runs one of the largest and busiest ECMO centres in the country and today, serves as a national referral centre for managing patients on ECMO.
Dr Prashanth Rajagopalan is the Founding Director of MGM Healthcare. A doctor by education, Prashanth went on to pursue a Master’s in Public Health Leadership and Management at Johns Hopkins University, USA, besides also being the youngest Harvard Macy fellow. Prashanth’s interests are in the intersection of healthcare, education and technology in healthcare.
1. Can you elaborate on the bottlenecks, challenges that your organisation faced during the pandemic and how have you overcome it?
When faced with a pandemic, the most pertinent step is to prepare your team to tackle the pandemic. And it all starts with instilling confidence and standing by their side. This is then followed by rigorous manpower planning, resource planning and planning of the workflows as patient safety as well as that of our staff comes first. It is important to come up with solid plans to manage our regular in-city patients as well as figure out ways to overcome travel restrictions imposed on our international and domestic patients. Logistic management is also primary as vendor management and managing drugs and consumables supplies is key amidst the lockdown.
The key to running a hospital with the highest level of safety in place is to monitor every person who walks in and out of the premises. We set up a fever clinic and performed rigorous triaging of patients; we take COVID tests before elective and non-emergency procedures and take the best safety measures during emergencies. We have divided ourselves into three teams — Clinical, Nursing, Administration — and follow a strict rota system. All our COVID-treating doctors and nurses have been provided with a separate accommodation to protect their families and the community. We have set-up a rigorous workflow management to prevent cross-contamination. Mostly importantly, and this is something that most people don’t consider, we provide our staff with health insurance and free medical treatment.
2. What were the infrastructure, technological changes that you implemented at your hospital to fight the war against COVID?
MGM Healthcare is a relatively new state-of-the-art 400-bed hospital with over 100 critical care beds. Most of our in-patient rooms are private rooms — you see, isolation is key! Most of our private patients rooms are equipped to be stepped up into ICU-level rooms, as needed. You see, more than ‘changes’, we mainly harnessed the full potential of some of our ahead-of-its-times technology. Our voice-enabled nurse assistant and Alexa-based concierge service provide round-the-clock patient attention. Our IoT-based digital ICU solution allows for workflow automation and 24x7 remote monitoring of patients with data driven predictive intelligence alerts. We have the country’s largest and busiest ECMO unit with over 12 ECMOs running at any point of time. We also have over 30 ventilators deployed at the peak of the pandemic, some that were sourced in record time. We installed a robot on our patient floors that helped us automate the UV sterilisation process.
3. What role has technology and support of partners such as Mindray played in order to help you provide steadfast and high-quality care to your patients during this crisis?
High-quality care is something we provide to all our patients, day in and day out. Patient safety and exceptional outcomes combined with stellar patient experience are a part of our ethos. While we have made considerable achievements in the last two years of our existence, some of our major achievements that have brought us national and international recognition have been during the pandemic. We became the first hospital in South Asia to perform a biventricular artificial heart implant called the Berlin heart on a 3 year old child, an achievement that garnered us international laurels. But our most defining moment was when we became only the third centre in the world and first in Asia (outside of China) to have performed a bilateral lung transplant on a person who had suffered severe lung damage post-COVID.
The four pillars of any hospital are Patients, Public, Physicians and Partners. Partners including vendors and suppliers, like Mindray, are usually overlooked in their contributions. But truth be told, they have worked hand-in-hand with us to fight against this pandemic. They have kept the system running and have come to the rescue of public and private institutions, helping them face this pandemic with full strength. Our biggest supporter, Mindray, provided quality ventilators and monitors and other life support equipment at a reasonable price and also ensured on time delivery of the products. I was impressed by their excellent local support team, which is available 24x7 for any service call. It is companies like this one that will stand out.
4. What are the safety measures adopted to avoid cross infections and contamination within the hospital?
As mentioned previously, our first line of defense was the fever clinic we set up to perform rigorous screening before allowing people to enter the hospital, including staff. Thermal cameras have been fitted to detect change in temperature of our staff, doctors and patients. We also automated our UV sterilisation process with a robot. We use separate clinical, nursing, admin and support staff for COVID and non-COVID floors and separate workflows have been set for them so that there are no chances of cross-contamination. There are separate entry and exit points and a whole floor with isolated AHUs for COVID patients.
Of course, hand sanitisers are placed at every major point in the hospital and masks are compulsory for everyone. PPEs and N95 masks are provided for all staff and doctors working in high risk areas. We encourage our staff and doctors to do the responsible thing and self-declare fever and other symptoms.
We run the country's largest Heart & Lung Transplant and ECMO programme. We are the only hospital in India to have performed all major solid organ transplants within a year of inauguration. During the lockdown alone we have done over ten successful heart, lung and liver transplants and our outcomes have been on par with the best centres in the world. All this has been possible only because of our greater emphasis on infection control within the hospital from the get-go.
5. What kind of technology was introduced at your hospital to combat the pandemic crisis?
We invested well in thermal sensors and thermal cameras in high-risk areas and other key areas to monitor our staff, doctors and patients. To keep our patients safe and allow them continued access to their doctors, we set up virtual consultations. In a short time, we doubled the number of ventilators and high flow oxygen devices to cater to more patients. We automated the UV sterilisation process, aside from the regular cleaning done by our housekeeping staff. The rest was only about harnessing all the top-class technology we already had in place as part of our endeavour to provide exceptional healthcare to all. We endeavour to promote a positive patient experience while also achieving outstanding outcomes.
6. How do you think collaborations & good relationships with partners such as Mindray can help in bringing in the desired innovations and how will it result in better medical outcomes?
In any industry, people depend on partners and suppliers to provide the best for a competitive price and within a tight timeline. Suppliers like Mindray always surprise us with their portfolio. They have quite an enriching portfolio and I believe companies like these can bring a lot of great value addition to the table with their technology. I look forward to more partnerships that offer affordable prices on high-end technology. At MGM Healthcare, we firmly stand by exceptional and affordable healthcare to the community with empathy, expertise and excellence.
