The National Cancer Grid (NCG) has established the Koita Centre for Digital Oncology (KCDO) to promote use of digital technologies and tools to improve cancer care across India. The Centre has been set up with the contributions received from the Koita Foundation, which will support it for five years. 

The Tata Memorial Centre and Koita Foundation formalised the collaboration by signing an MoU at the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai. KCDO will also enable NCG and NCG hospitals to pilot and adopt new technologies — including AI, machine learning, big data, automation, cloud, mobile — which will benefit hospitals, doctors, patients and consumers. 

National Cancer Grid

• The National Cancer Grid (NCG) was formed in August 2012 with the mandate of linking cancer centers across India.

• It is an initiative of the government through the Department of Atomic Energy and its grant-in-aid institution, the Tata Memorial Centre to create a network of cancer centres, research institutes, patient groups and charitable institutions across India with the objective of developing uniform standards of patient care for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer.

• A modest initiative, which originally had 14 cancer centers, has rapidly grown now to over 270 hospitals, virtually covering the entire length and breadth of the country and is amongst the largest cancer networks in the world. 

• The NCG has the primary mandate of working towards uniform standards of care across India by adopting evidence-based management guidelines, which are implementable across these centers.

• It is also intended to facilitate the exchange of expertise between centers and to create a ready network of centers for collaborative research in cancer.

• The NCG attempts to reduce disparities in the standards of patient care in various geographic regions of India.

Manorama Yearbook app is now available on Google Play Store and iOS App Store