IIT Bombay launches its new Centre for Digital Health

In a significant initiative, the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay has launched its new Centre for Digital Heath – the first-of-its-kind in India.

The ‘Koita Centre for Digital Health’ (KCDH) was launched with a generous contribution received from its alumni Rekha and Rizwan Koita, under the aegis of the Koita Foundation.

KCDH will be the first of its kind in India, focussed on driving academic programmes, research and industry collaboration in Digital Health.

Improving the quality, accessibility and affordability of healthcare is one of the world’s biggest priorities.

Digital Health, including healthcare informatics, has a profound impact on the quality of care and efficiency of healthcare delivery. Consequently, there is substantial focus globally on enhancing Digital Health and Informatics.

In India too, the launch of the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) in 2020 is expected to drive Digital Health adoption at a national scale.

KCDH’s academic and research focus areas include clinical applications (including electronic patient records and medical imaging), healthcare data management (including healthcare data privacy and security), healthcare analytics, healthcare AI /ML, consumer health, public health and public policy.

KCDH will offer minor, dual degree, Masters and Ph D programmes in Healthcare Informatics. KCDH will conduct industry/outreach programmes for healthcare and industry professionals in Digital Health and enable them to act as force-multipliers.

Digital Health and Informatics need cross-functional expertise – computer science, statistics, AI/ machine learning, bioinformatics, and medicine.

KCDH will foster strong collaboration with Digital Health partners - hospitals, medical research institutes, industry. KCDH and its Digital Health partners will establish joint academic and research programmes. In addition, KCDH will actively collaborate with healthcare technology companies, healthcare NGOs and government organisations.

“The centre will enable an ecosystem that can help address the healthcare challenges that have been so glaringly exposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Digital Health and Informatics need cross-functional expertise,” said Prof Subhasis Chaudhuri, Director, IIT Bombay.

“Digital Health is critical to improve healthcare at scale. We are delighted to support IIT Bombay in establishing the centre, which can play a pivotal role in improving healthcare in India and across the world,” added Rizwan Koita, Founder Koita Foundation.