New Delhi: India’s healthcare system must urgently pivot from a treatment-first approach to one rooted in prevention, healthy lifestyles and community-led care, experts said at a national summit on holistic health held in the capital on Friday.Warning of a sharp rise in lifestyle diseases driven by urbanisation, stress and sedentary habits, policymakers and clinicians called for integrating health into everyday spaces—homes, schools and workplaces—rather than confining it to hospitals. The consensus was that the future of healthcare lies as much in daily routines and food habits as in clinics.Delivering the keynote address, former Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said healthcare must extend beyond curative services to include preventive, promotive and rehabilitative care, much of which takes place within communities. Given India’s vast and diverse population, he emphasised the need to foster “health-seeking behaviour” through local initiatives, while leveraging both modern medicine and traditional systems under AYUSH.A key theme of the summit was the convergence of tradition and technology. Experts highlighted the growing role of digital public health infrastructure, including the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission and ABHA IDs, in enabling integrated and data-driven care. Emerging tools such as artificial intelligence, they said, could significantly improve early detection and healthcare efficiency.Experts also stressed that preventive healthcare cannot succeed without sustained behavioural change. “The real shift is from managing disease to building a culture of health ownership,” said Dr Ravi Gaur, underscoring the need for awareness and long-term engagement beyond clinical settings.Traditional knowledge systems received strong endorsement, with speakers advocating the mainstreaming of yoga, nutrition, seasonal diets and Ayurveda. Health, they said, should be viewed not merely as the absence of disease but as a state of physical, mental and social well-being aligned with one’s environment.Cardiologist Dr TS Kler cautioned that a large proportion of premature deaths in India are linked to lifestyle and environmental risk factors, making prevention and awareness as critical as treatment.The discussions also highlighted mental health, workplace stress and student well-being as emerging public health priorities, alongside the expanding role of telemedicine and digital platforms in widening access to care.
