With rapid advancement in healthcare technologies in the last two years, Siemens Healthineers is betting big on its India investments and the tech talent here
By Srinath Srinivasan
Siemens Healthineers, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic last year, announced its plan to set up an innovation hub in Bengaluru, with an investment of over Rs 1,300 crore. This centre is expected to be ready by 2024 and will house nearly 5,000 professionals. The company’s existing technology development centre in Bengaluru focuses on long-term research and development work, and the tech talent there has successfully developed several innovative solutions to address immediate Covid-19 diagnostic challenges.
“India and Slovakia are the two main pillars of Siemens Healthineers’ software and digital technologies comprising over 50% of the technical workforce. India is one centre where Siemens Healthineers’ entire tech suite is present,” says Dileep Mangsuli, head, Development Centre, Siemens Healthineers. “We were pioneering rapid Covid-19 antigen and RT-PCR tests during the peak of the pandemic. We also brought out AI-based solutions to diagnose Covid-19. We grew significantly in digital talent in the last two years—AI algorithm creators, programmers, developers, imaging technologists and many more.”
With a global rally in the healthcare market last year due to demand for diagnostic and Covid antigen tests, areas where primarily Indian talent has been contributing during the pandemic, Siemens Healthineers has, in fact, upped its forecasts for FY22 revenue growth rates to 3-5% from 0-2%.
Mangsuli is bullish on some of the newer technology trends in which the German healthcare giant’s Indian talent is ready to contribute—ML, AI insights, platformisation of both hardware and software technology, spatial and blockchain technologies, cloud and cybersecurity—besides clinical talent with doctors and radiologists trained in digital healthcare. “We are also partnering with hospitals to train our digital talent in the healthcare domain as well,” he says. “We are working with Nasscom to create training programmes. Our collaboration with universities in India is also a work-in-progress. We are assessing whether our team members can become curriculum providers and faculties.”
The development centre in Bengaluru is also working on co-creation with academia to solve technological challenges and talent training. “We are working with Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mumbai and IIT Madras to reach students directly. We are trying to make healthcare exciting and challenging. Automotive and financial industries continue to excite people. We want to do that for healthcare and resolve talent hesitancy in the healthcare domain,” says Mangsuli.
Currently, Siemens Healthineers hires up to 20% of its talent from top Indian universities, opening up several levels in the global talent pyramid.
Indian tech talent has been contributing to photon counting which takes digital organ imaging to finer details, cinematic rendering for CT/MRI images for improved visualisation and training, a vaccination monitoring application like that of India’s Co-Win but for other markets and AR/VR for training of healthcare professionals, including that of surgery.
In late 2019, Siemens Healthineers completed the acquisition of Corindus Vascular Robotics to boost its robotics capabilities in healthcare procedures. “While robotics in surgery is coming up fast, it is largely concentrated in the US. Our Indian development centre is ramping up the process to work on robotics soon. Remote robotic surgeries will make up for skill shortage,” he says.
The ultimate aim of the investments in digital technologies is to scale up healthcare access for the masses. Next is affordability and accuracy. “Affordability here is not just about making healthcare cheap; at least in India where cancer and cardiac problems are dominant. It is going to be about catching diseases early. People will spend at the right time in the right place rather than simply paying some price for a treatment,” says Mangsuli.
India’s digital health infrastructure is expected to improve the accuracy of healthcare. “Accuracy requires data. With National Health Mission and citizen health data, we will be able to introduce a digital layer to filter and derive insights from the data collected,” he says.
There are, however, challenges affecting accuracy and skilling. Data is not readily available or clean. Then there is hesitancy in sharing one’s health data. “Availability and maintenance of the data for different regions and populations is a huge problem. Generic algorithms do not work. We need federated algorithms. This can be solved by movements like national health data repositories or portals with individual permission and authentication,” he says.
