Dr Suraj Baliga, MBBS,1

Bangalore 7th November 2022 – Clinikk, a Bengaluru based health-tech start-up on Saturday organized a workshop to develop Evidence Based Care Pathways (EBCP) for its doctors. The aim of the workshop was to ensure quality healthcare and reduce clinical errors by converting knowledge into an action plan and do clinical audits for the same.

Clinikk runs 16 primary care centers called Clinikk Health Hubs in Bengaluru and two Clinikk Health Hubs in Hyderabad. The company aims to provide access to every stage of healthcare by bringing together primary healthcare and comprehensive health insurance– through a tie-up with a health insurance company– into one affordable subscription.

The objective of the workshop was to enable the doctors with processes and know-how to review and evaluate research and glean through the data and build evidence-based care pathways for symptoms and diseases.

Research studies indicate that evidence-based care pathways lead to higher quality care, improved patient recovery in addition to reduced care costs and greater satisfaction compared to traditional methods. Building care pathways using evidence-based medicine reduces over-investigations and over-treatment while also reducing the scope of clinical errors.

The workshop was presided by Dr. Kamlesh Bhargava, MD FRCGP [INT] who has facilitated workshops internationally including University of Oxford, UK. He is currently the Director (International) Continuing Professional Development Group of the Academy of Family Physicians of India (AFPI). It was also led by Dr. Deepa Bhargava, Pediatric ENT surgeon. She has implemented a similar approach in the ENT department in Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Oman and has extensive experience in developing EBCP.

Dr. (col) Mohan Kubendra, National Vice president, Association of Family Physicians of India who also graced the occasion said that Clinikk’s workshop on building Care Pathways based on Evidence Based Medicine was pioneering work especially in primary care. “We need an effective layer of primary healthcare that is evidence based to modernise and contextualise care pathways leading to better health outcomes,” he said.

The workshop will be an annual affair aimed at enhancing and modernising the skill set of Clinikk Doctors. Commenting on the occasion, Dr. Suraj Baliga, MBBS, D.Ortho, DNB (Ortho), FAGE, said “We are excited to embark on this workshop designed by eminent faculty for patient benefit. Patients deserve nothing less than the best care. To this end, we are constantly working to update our patient care protocols with the latest clinical evidence for the best clinical outcomes.”

Speaking at the workshop Dr. Kamlesh Bhargava said that “Evidence based care pathways are important for Clinikk, to ensure standardized, evidence-based care, by each doctor in all the Clinikk Health Hubs. There is a lot of information overload, and at the same time, there is some excellent research material available that is now easily accessible. It’s important for the doctors to cut through the clutter and make use of research and modern evidence and integrate that into the practice”.

The workshop involved 25 Clinikk doctors and 5 facilitators (national and international) and was preceded by rigorous online pre-workshop sessions wherein each group had to develop Care pathways and protocols for a particular illness basis available clinical evidence, research, and developed protocols. The culmination of the workshop this year has helped the doctors not only learn about how to cut through the research material but also harness information and contextualize care pathways to the demography and the geography in which they are practicing.

In terms of handling healthcare, Clinikk is proud of its one-of-a-kind technology platform that assists its Doctors with automated clinical decision support that is embedded into their workflows and ensures that patients get safe, effective, and protocol-based care. A tech-enabled Care Team model also allows Clinikk to deliver essential promotive and preventive care at scale and efficiently.