The Healthcare market in India is estimated to be about US $65 billion. The medical tourism industry itself is at $1 billion and growing at a staggering rate. A major point to be noted here is that, India spends only 1% of its GDP in health sector, whereas China and the US spend around 3% to 8.3% respectively. The health industry in India has received foreign direct investment (FDI) worth US $2,793.72 million even though 100% FDI has been permitted for the hospital sector.
HRS Navigation is a healthcare startup focused on providing innovative computer assisted surgery solutions with an extensive national/international team having R&D and clinical experience on CATS (Computer Assisted Tumor Surgery/Navigation Surgery).
The Insight behind HRS Navigation
It has been observed that 70% of the medical devices are imported. But the disadvantage here is that, this has increased the burden on the Indian healthcare by making it more costly and hence not able to reach the masses.
Surgical procedures are complicated in nature and demand high accuracy for safety of patients and due to rising awareness there is a rise in requirement of minimally invasive surgery. Surgical Navigation systems facilitate minimally invasive surgeries that include the use of medical imaging modalities to gain accuracy through images generated. These systems help to reach the precise area of interest and avoid damage to healthy tissue during surgical procedures. Surgical navigation systems also enable rapid healing of surgical wounds, which reduces hospital stay.
It is a standard affair in developed countries to carry out computer assisted surgeries and yet only limited hospitals in India could actually afford it. The high cost involved has even deterred the big hospitals of India from using such technology.
The very thought of making premium quality healthcare affordable & accessible was the main source of inspiration behind the foundation of HRS Navigation.
Accessibility and Affordability through Constant Innovation
HRS Navigation was founded in Bangalore on Jan 2015 and was formed by the talented minds from IIT, IIM, NIT, VIT etc. with exposure to German R&D in the field of Surgical Navigation.
Their flagship product, easyNav™ is an all-round solution for ENT and Neuro Surgeries. It is a single trolley design with a flexible camera arm. Their other products include, easyNav™ Planning Station that allows planning outside the surgical area. The easyNav™ Cranial Navigation and easyNav™ ENT Navigation are checklist based simple navigation softwares which helps surgeons to follow the procedure step by step. Their product range also includes tools such as easyNav™ Probes, easyNav™ Patient Tracker and easyNav™ Head frame Adapter for higher precision and better tracking.
The navigation system comes with the 3rd generation optical camera which provides class leading 0.2 mm RMS accuracy, checklist based simple user interface designed in accordance with surgical workflow and a simple trolley design that provides the best utilization of OT space.
The Brainchild behind HRS Navigation
With more than 10 years of cumulative experience in surgical navigation system R&D, clinical and marketing & sales, Arpit Paliwal is the challenge loving Founder of HRS Navigation, who has done executive program in sales & marketing from IIM Calcutta. He was managing the navigation business for all India as part of the Stryker(Fortune 500), where they were already developing the navigation system back in 2007. It was during his tenure that he came across various hospitals for computer assisted surgeries & realized the need for simple, affordable navigation solution.
Arpit has also been awarded with the Annual Product Performance Award for navigation and for bringing around the navigation business in India.
Challenges faced, Lessons learnt, Progress made
Initially, getting the right manufacturing infrastructure & skilled resources for system development was a huge challenge. It was a learning curve for the entire team with the critical hardware which was imported and involved a significant investment.
HRS Navigation was started with the mammoth task of developing India’s first surgical Neuro navigation system which would be accurate, easy to use & affordable for India and other emerging economies.
In the early stage, they involved various surgeons to make sure that the product meets the Indian surgeons’ requirement & the Indian hospital infrastructure. The simplicity and the accuracy of the system surprised even those clients who were initially reluctant to use the system.
The final product has undergone 2 years of R&D efforts to proclaim a strong competition to contemporary imported systems in terms of accuracy, simplicity and affordability.
Where HRS stands and where it will prod ahead
HRS Navigation is currently the only company which provides totally consumable-less tracking devices which significantly reduces the operational cost of Cranial surgeries. Their system works on a unique optical pattern recognition technology which gives the 3D tracking an accuracy of sub-millimeters and also does not require infrared emitters.
Currently the compact easyNav™ system can be used in Cranial, ENT and will soon be released for Spine 3D. With an ergonomically designed tool for different types of cases, HRS navigation also provides frameless biopsy which eliminates the need of bulky stereostatic frames.
With the aim to reduce dependency on imported devices and correspondingly making premium healthcare solutions affordable & accessible for common people, the management at HRS Navigation is constantly carrying out innovation for more navigation products like Spine, Knee and virtual fluoroscopy. They also have affordable robotic surgeries in the product pipeline.
By keeping things simple and by focusing on customer satisfaction, HRS will always progress through hardcore innovation.
HRS Navigation: Making Surgeries Precise, Safe and Perennially Successful
