Our Team
Team Profile
‘Access to Diagnostics’ is a non-government, non-profit organisation incorporated in year 2013 under Section 8 of the Indian Companies Act. It has been set up by a team of motivated and accomplished medical doctors to provide accessible, affordable and high-quality medical diagnostic services to the under-privileged populations.
A2D’s key strength is its team of passionate and senior experts with extensive experience in niche subject matter. The team members have worked in eminent positions and on large projects with various organisations including Governments, AIIMS Delhi, WHO (India, Geneva, SEARO), FIND, PATH, CDC, World Bank, IFC, EY, NHS UK, Dell, Accenture and Imperial College of London.
They have played key leadership roles in formulating national policies and global guidance in diagnostics in public health with Governments, WHO Geneva, WHO SEARO. They have also played key role in developing policy and institutional framework for private sector engagement, capacity building, contract design, and evaluating outcomes. They have guided several Governments including Government of India and State Governments on budgeting and effective budget utilisation in diagnostics. In implementation of diagnostic services, they have headed/ held senior positions in laboratory medicine departments of premier institutes including AIIMS Delhi, Maulana Azad Medical College, and PGI Chandigarh.
They have spearheaded the largest public-private partnerships in diagnostics, some of which have won global accolades; led setting up of large private diagnostic chains globally; set-up six sigma based large-scale laboratory models; set up quality management systems in laboratories nationally; and supported implementation of last-mile diagnostic technologies. They have led complex health IT architectural designing including for diagnostics, and headed applied intelligence solutions globally.
In the area of research, development, and advisory services, they have led research projects in diagnostics with DBT, ICMR, WHO (Geneva), EU, National Institute of Health (USA); developed innovative diagnostic solutions for neglected tropical diseases; and led evaluations of diagnostic solutions.
They have played key role in health systems strengthening; conducted monitoring and evaluation of several Government health schemes; conducted impact evaluation of health projects of several countries; provided transaction advisory services for PPP projects; and gave advisory support on patient-clinician centric value enhancement and social expenditure on health. Other achievements include holding eminent positions in public health including listing in top 2 percent of the world scientists (Microbiologists); Principal Assessor for NABH authorities; Editor-in-chief of international journals in diagnostics; Adviser LOINC group for diagnostics (HL-7 FHIR ) of the National Digital Health Mission.
Team members
Dr Yogita Kumar
Dr Yogita Kumar is a Pathologist with a management degree in healthcare with over 20 years of experience in diagnostics with a niche in public health diagnostics. She has worked extensively with the Governments, WHO Headquarters, WHO India, FIND, diagnostic industry and practiced as a Pathologist in public and private sectors. She is passionate about improving access to diagnostics for the underprivileged populations. Her work with Ministry of Health in India and WHO India Country Office involved engaging extensively, as the focal person, at MoH and with State Governments for providing technical and project management support for National Free Diagnostics Initiative. She was the main author of revised National Guidelines on Free Diagnostics Initiative of National Health Mission (2019) and one of the key authors of global guidance of WHO Headquarters on development and implementation of national EDLs. She is also one of the contributors of National Essential Diagnostics List, IPHS diagnostics and diagnostic package for Comprehensive primary healthcare (Health and Wellness Centres) under Ayushman Bharat. She also led development of guidance on IVDs for the Universal Health Coverage Compendium at WHO Headquarters. At MoH, she played a key role in formulation of policies, plans and implementation strategies; assessment of budgetary and resource allocations; guiding and handholding States on implementation of services and on procurement of services in public-private partnerships; overseeing capacity building activities. She also led technical evaluations of several States – both in-house services and PPP. She has led large national and state level public health projects in diagnostics with international not-for-profits. She also heads a not-for-profit which provided affordable, high quality diagnostics in urban slums.
R. Balasubramaniam (Bala)
Bala is a healthcare diagnostics and PPP specialist with over 30 years of professional experience, including more than 23 years in healthcare, spanning consulting, entrepreneurship, and large-scale public–private partnership implementation across Asia and Africa. His work includes senior advisory and team leadership roles for ADB, World Bank, and IFC, leading and contributing to high-impact diagnostic strengthening projects in Bhutan, The Gambia, Ghana, Uzbekistan, Timor-Leste, and India, covering end-to-end aspects such as gap analysis, demand assessment, PPP structuring, financial modeling, transaction advisory, and policy frameworks. He has held senior leadership positions including COO of India’s largest integrated diagnostics PPP provider, managing 19 multi-state projects, 3,000 staff, and an USD 80 million P&L, and previously co-founded and led PPP and M&A functions at Medall Healthcare, delivering award-winning statewide radiology and pathology PPPs audited by WHO and recognized by IFC. His career also includes regional leadership in Africa with Abraaj Group and early entrepreneurship in healthcare technology with PE backing. Bala has been instrumental in major policy shifts from provider to payer models in public health diagnostics, has advised governments on feasibility, RFPs, concession agreements, and implementation, and is widely recognized for execution excellence, policy advocacy, and measurable improvements in access, affordability, quality, and patient outcomes in public health systems.
Dr. Sujay Prasad (Advisory member)
Dr Sujay Prasad is a Pathologist and is the founder and creative force behind new innovations, technology initiatives and business process improvements at Anand Diagnostic Laboratory, a Neuberg Associate in Bengaluru. He has been instrumental in expanding the service capability of Anand Lab from facility expansion to acquisition of state of the art equipment. With his zero tolerance attitudes to errors, he has designed innovative methods that focus on minimizing errors across all operating processes. He oversees all IT initiatives and has implemented interesting IT enabled ideas such as automated report printing kiosks and online results reporting, much ahead of the industry adoption. He is one of the pioneers of the concepts - Cost of cutting cost In Laboratory Medicine. He is also a certified lead assessor for NABL (ISO 15189 accreditation) and has conducted technical assessments overseas. He has vast experience in and passion for interfacing between Lab Medicine and Information Technology, Artificial intelligence in Lab Medicine, Mindfulness in Laboratory Medicine and using Sigma Metric as a risk management tool.
Dr Divye Chhabra
Dr. Divye Chhabra is Pathologist with over 26 years of experience in the fields of laboratory diagnostics and Information technology in healthcare. His passion is enabling diagnostics through application of information technology. He is a practicing pathologist running a highly reputed diagnostic laboratory and has also led and managed several large national and international Health-IT projects, which has given him a rich experience of people, process and technology specific to the domain. His success with information technology has been helped by an early foray into the technical side of things with close understanding of database systems, programming techniques and ability to have a hands-on approach when needed. He has worked closely with cloud providers (AWS, MS Azure) and their various product/ service offerings. He routinely guides teams on equipment integration principles, has forayed into form factor best practices for user specific device interactions and developed platforms for LIS, EMR, all the way upto inter-state health information exchange. He was the co-founder of Triotree Technologies, a large health IT company with presence in many countries in Asia.
Dr Anu George
Dr Anu George is a Pathologist with over 30 years of experience. She has been working for strengthening and quality improvement of public health laboratories for several years. She has led two CDC projects - The first, Labs for Life which was executed in laboratories of district hospitals and medical colleges in select districts in 6 states. In this project, a roadmap was prepared for quality improvement of district hospital laboratories, named LIFE Initiative, and launched by NHM. The project also involved setting up of district model of quality assured laboratory network with defined testing capacities at each level and sample referrals to higher tier for higher end testing. In-service training was seen as a major gap and training mechanisms were evolved for the same. Training modules were developed for all aspects of laboratory quality and training of trainers was done, followed by support for last mile training and mentoring. She also worked as Associate Project Director for LAQSH project which involves quality improvement of all testing facilities for HIV under NACP -- HIV serology labs, CD4 testing labs, molecular laboratories doing viral load testing and Early Infant Diagnosis. She is working as National Technical Specialist for 3 Global Fund projects implemented through SAATHII where among other responsibilities she is involved in developing training modules for all cadres of NACO including the laboratory cadres. She was a member of the Technical Resource Group of the Lab Service Division of NACO. She is also an assessor for NABL, for the international standard for quality and competence for medical laboratories, ISO 15189.
Dr. Neeraj Jain (Advisory member)
Dr Neeraj Jain is a Pathologist with over 25 years of experience. He is the founder of MELAP and is a renowned Medical Educator and Trainer specialized and well-recognized in Medical Laboratory Quality & Accreditation related concerns and challenges He is an authority figure in Six-Sigma Green Belt, ISO15189, ISO17043 & ISO13528 (NABL). He is currently President, Association of Practicing Pathologists. He is a certified NABL Assessor & Principal Assessor for NABH authorities and has conducted trainings for India's most reputed Medical & Research institutes like AIIMS, New Delhi, PGI Chandigarh, PGIMS Rohtak, GCRI Ahmedabad, NEIGRIHMS Shillong etc. He has designed several technical courses in laboratory accreditation & quality management, which are well-appreciated and accepted by the healthcare industry and are well-known across India. He is founder and director of Medical Education & Learning Point initiative (MELAP) which has provided customised training to 2000+ Medical Doctors & Pathologists, 3000+ Laboratory Technicians & Allied healthcare professionals He is regularly invited by Corporate Businesses, Medical Institutes & Colleges as a Guest Speaker, for Panel Discussions, Scientific Sessions & Expert Opinion on Research for Laboratories throughout country.
Dr Vandana Kumar
Dr. Vandana Kumar is a medical doctor and senior public health consultant with over 25 years of experience in health systems strengthening, with a strong focus on diagnostics, primary healthcare, and innovations in healthcare. She has worked extensively with governments, WHO, the World Bank Group/IFC, other national and international agencies, academia, and the private sector on national and state-level health programmes, including Free Diagnostics Initiatives, National Essential Diagnostics List, innovative diagnostics and digital health solutions. An MBBS graduate from Maulana Azad Medical College, and Gold Medalist MBA in Healthcare Administration from the Faculty of Management Studies, she currently serves as Director, Access to Diagnostics, and as an independent consultant, contributing to policy formulation, programme evaluation, and implementation of scalable, cost-effective health solutions in India and internationally. Dr. Kumar also brings significant academic experience, having served as Visiting Faculty at the Faculty of Management Studies and the International Institute of Health Management Research, Delhi, contributing to teaching and capacity building in public health and health management.
Dr Juhee Chandra
Dr. Juhee Chandra is a Pathologist, Lead and Technical Assessor for ISO 15189 (NABL) with over 28 years of experience in laboratory medicine. She was the CNNS (UNICEF) Laboratory Manager at CDSA from 2016 till 2018. She is a faculty for training in ISO 15189 & ISO 17043 at BIS. She is working with skilling India programme and is a technical expert and empanelled assessor with Healthcare Sector Skill Council for Vocational Training Providers. She is a certified master trainer for training of trainers. She is an empanelled auditor with NQAS under the National Rural heath mission. She is an expert at CBSE for medical diagnostics and has also co-authored a book for medical technologists. She is trained in the implementation of NABH standards and is a Technical Assessor for NABH for compliance with ISO 15189 standard and pre entry accreditation of Healthcare organisations. She heads the Department of Laboratory Medicine at Jeewan Anmol Hospital, Delhi and has worked with SRL, Apollo and Onquest. She was Co-investigator for Cytology studies in male infertility & post radiation cases of carcinoma cervix.
Rajeev Sharma
Rajeev Sharma has held senior positions in laboratories of large hospitals including Max group of hospitals and Japypee group of hospitals for over 21 years. His passion is to equip laboratories for fast-paced work and daily changing daily needs and brings strong attention to detail concerning patient samples and work integrity. He seeks opportunities to go beyond basics, improve processes, and increase patient satisfaction. He has led several innovative projects at these private laboratories including continuous monitoring of CPRT (cost per reportable test), reporting of critical values via SMS/ QR Code, sample rejection analysis, reducing TAT of Laboratory testing for emergency department, time line study. He has also played a leadership role in standardization and harmonization of multiple satellite laboratories of Max Institute across North India, coordinated implementation of all Clinical Trials (more than 150 sites across India/175 Staffs) and ISO 15189: 2012 Accreditation for all 8 Max Healthcare Hospitals.
Collaborators
Dr Sarman Singh (Collaborating partner on behalf of ACCORD – Advanced Centre for Chronic and Rare Diseases)
Dr. Sarman Singh was Head, Laboratory Medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi where he worked for 30 years in various faculty positions. He retired as Director & Chief Executive Officer of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal in November 2021. He has been listed in the top 2% of the world scientists (Microbiology) for last 3 consecutive years. After retirement he joined as Professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Bhopal. Dr. Singh has 7 patents to his credit, and one technology has been commercialized, and taken-up by the Government of India in its kala-azar elimination programme. He is Editor-in-chief of Journal of Laboratory Physicians, Academic Editor of Medicine, PLoS-NTD, PLoS-One, and Tuberculosis Research and Treatment, besides being on the editorial boards of more than 40 national and international journals. He is Fellow of more than 7 national and international Academies including Royal College of Pathologists and Royal Society of Chemists and Member of more than 20 national and international scientific bodies. He has been awarded by several national and international scientific /academic bodies for his outstanding contribution. Prof. Singh has successfully undertaken more than 46 research projects from various national and international funding agencies including Department of Biotechnology (Government of India), Indian Council of Medical Research (Government of India), Department of Science and Technology (Govt of India), Department of Health Research (Government of India), World Health Organization (Geneva), National Institute of Health (USA) and from European Commission. He has written 6 books, 46 book chapters and more than 350 research papers with a total citation of more than 12,000, i10 index of 211 and H-index of 57.