The expansion of government hospitals, medical colleges, and healthcare infrastructure is a significant stride towards meeting the evolving health care demands of India's population for health care. Still, the need persists in taking significant initiatives towards enhancing access to primary health care services, primarily in rural areas. Primary health care centres should have disease screening systems and trained professionals, and secondary or tertiary hospitals must possess advanced health care equipment. In India, most health care equipment is imported from other countries. These types of equipment are expensive and primarily available in private multi-specialty hospitals, which makes them inaccessible to the common public.

Hence, as a country, we should focus on indigenous and cost-effective development of health care devices and systems. At first, this can be achieved by research and development through collaborative efforts between academic institutions, government agencies, and private sector companies to develop affordable medical devices, diagnostic tools, and health care technologies.

At Indian Institute of Science (IISc), there are many research laboratories headed by expert faculty that are working on revolutionising the Indian health care ecosystem through their innovative efforts in cancer diagnosis, neurological disorders, cardiovascular pathology, infectious diseases, indigenous brain implants, sensors for tissue phenotyping, drug delivery, biosensors, cancer therapy and point-of-care devices, including faculty focusing on VLSI, embedded systems, quantum computing, and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Emphasis is also on integrating AI with health care technologies, as it holds immense potential. AI can emerge as an assistive tool that significantly amplifies doctors' diagnostic and treatment capabilities. AI can only augment clinical expertise by predictive insights; however, the final decision will always lie at the clinician's end. In India, AI-assisted health care technologies can streamline complex medical processes and enhance patient care efficiency by assisting doctors in informed and accurate decision-making.

With AI becoming increasingly integrated into our daily lives, interdisciplinary research—which spans several fields from science to engineering—needs to be prioritised. The future generation of engineers and researchers should focus on this evolving field to support breakthroughs in developing state-of-the-art medical technologies in India. In this direction, an education platform like the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), which is a joint venture of the IITs and IISc, funded by the ministry of education, Government of India, offers a wide variety of courses to foster learning in the biomedical domain, with free courses to students. Additionally, courses that provide exposure to cutting-edge technologies and promote skill development are offered by EdTech platforms.

It is necessary to develop new technologies, such as wearables that monitor blood pressure, blood glucose, SPO2 levels, EMG sensors, point-of-care devices, and indigenous health care technologies for cancer screening or diagnosis and neural implants. Regarding biomedical devices, there is a growing emphasis on technology readiness levels (TRL) in India. Considering India's present research scenario, most healthcare devices in academia can reach around TRL-5/6. It is imperative to push beyond these levels and accelerate progress towards TRL-9, and so to translate these systems into the market. In this direction, numerous funding agencies, such as ICMR, DBT, DST, etc., play a crucial role in handholding scientists and researchers to fund the development of health care technologies with translational potential and enhance TRLs. Before being put on the market, biomedical devices must obtain approvals, certifications, and licences from regulatory bodies. In this process, regulatory consultants can be pivotal in translating the product to the market.

India can address its health care challenges and potentially create solutions that can be exported to other developing countries by combining technological innovation with cost-effectiveness. With its robust ecosystem of talent, growing investment in R&D, and ability to create cost-effective solutions, India is set to redefine global health care technologies. Overall, India's health care landscape looks very bright in the future. It won't be long until India is referred to as a global horsepower in health care technology development.

This article is authored by Dr Hardik Jeetendra Pandya, associate professor, department of electronic systems engineering, division, EECS, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.