Assam Cancer Care Joins TMC NCG Navya & MSD India To Boost Medical Infra

In a unique partnership, Navya Technologies Pvt. Ltd has partnered with the Assam Cancer Care Foundation to serve oncology teams and cancer patients with personalized, evidence-based treatment plans that are based on clinical evidence and consensus-driven, real-time expertise of Tata Memorial Centre and the National Cancer Grid. This pilot program, enabled by MSD India and implemented by Navya, has been designed to enhance clinical capabilities at Dibrugarh Cancer Centre, a unit of ACCF, by providing evidence-based treatment plans, a virtual multidisciplinary tumour board, and a series of interactive sessions between super specialized oncologists across India and physicians at ACCF.

Assam Cancer Care Foundation (ACCF) a joint initiative of the Government of Assam and the Tata Trusts, has built a three-tier comprehensive distributed cancer care network to provide accessible and affordable care. The program is aimed to enhance access to cancer care for the population of Assam and neighbouring states by minimising travel time, reduction in out-of-pocket expenses and provide cashless treatment under Central and State Government schemes.

Since the inauguration of seven state-of-the art hospitals across Assam by Hon'ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on April 28, 2022 the hospitals have delivered seamless treatment to over 40,000 patients from Assam, neighbouring states, and countries. ACCF teams also work in communities organising NCD campaigns, creating awareness in hinterlands and identifying suspected cancer cases to ensure every citizen has access to cancer care. While the new ACCF hospitals provide a significant step towards comprehensive care coverage, the incidence of cancer has been spreading rapidly across Assam. The state still faces several barriers in its clinical management and health systems which impede access and delivery of quality cancer care, leading to delayed diagnoses, long waiting periods, poor treatment outcomes and catastrophic expenditures, Low-income patients are most affected by the lack of quality care.

At Dibrugarh Cancer Centre, Navya will position clinical resources in the hospital to collect patient reports, process them through the system, and make real time recommendations to aid the treating physicians.

"The TMC NCG Navya offering combines the decades of experience and expertise at TMC, the robust treatment guidelines of the NCG, and the technological and patient-centric prowess of Navya to work towards a uniform standard of care while taking into account resource stratification in a place like Assam. This is an innovative model to promote guideline-based and expert-backed care plans even in the most remote areas of our country", says Dr. C.S. Pramesh, Director - Tata Memorial Hospital, Convenor - National Cancer Grid.

Commenting on this partnership, Rehan Khan, Managing Director, MSD India said, "At MSD, we believe in the power of partnerships and collaborations, and the role they play in transforming healthcare. We are thus proud to partner on this unique program that will help improve access for patients and physicians to world-class multidisciplinary experts and to the latest advancements in oncology. We are confident that this unique solution will help deliver the best possible treatment for patients in Assam."

TMC NCG Navya was founded in 2010 with the belief that every cancer patient deserves access to expertise, no matter their location, socioeconomic status, or ability to research medical information. Tata Memorial Centre, India's largest cancer research and treatment centre, the National Cancer Grid, a coalition of over 300 cancer centres, and Navya, a cancer informatics organization came together to design this offering as a way to increase the adoption of guideline-based cancer care across India. The platform matches case reports to data from published literature, national guidelines, and over 100,000 previous cases to make personalized, data-backed treatment recommendations. For complex cases, the system- based recommendation is then shared with super specialized oncologists at Tata Memorial or one of the NCG centers before sharing back with the treating oncologist on site.

Through this pilot at Dibrugarh, the ACCF aims to achieve similar outcomes before expanding the TMC NCG Navya offering across the state as a digital backbone for the infrastructure it is building to improve cancer care in Assam.

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