Three Points about Medical Informatics in India.

As knowledge expands and requires better management, role of I.T in health care can only become more important. India has a large number of trained I.T professionals and is in a position to leverage its Brain power to take Health informatics to new heights. As i have argued before, smart use of health informatics can also help us attain Health rights for all in many ways (lower costs, better quality, better informed patients, e.t.c). Here, i have tried to showcase a few points about Use of Health Informatics in India as well as the various educational courses available within India.

The Three major uses of Health informatics in India
1) For better training of Health care professionals ( includes Doctors, Paramedicals and Non-medicals)- e.learning
2) For improved delivery of high quality health care services to the remote areas.- Telemedicine,EMRs, CDSS.
3) To bring about a transparency in public health care delivery system.(e-governance)- Public participation

The three major obstacles to Health Informatics in India.
1) Inadequate Skills of health care personnel/others
2) Inadequate Physical infrastructure
3) Inadequate access to I.T ( Digital divide).

The Three major Post Graduate Health care Informatics courses in India
1) Medvarsity online P.G Diploma in Medical Informatics. , associated with Apollo group of Hospitals
2) Amrita Institute of Medical sciences MSc/ P.G.Diploma in Medical Informatics , at Kochi,India.
3) Post Graduate Programs at BII (Bioinformatics Institute of India), Noida, with good industry integration.

The Three short Online courses for Medical Informatics in India-
1) eHCF School of Medical Informatics, Delhi provides Certificate course in medical informatics
2) IAHI online course on Health Informatics
3) BII provides various online/distance educations courses in Health care Informatics.

In view of the fast changing world of medical informatics, it is essential to formulate a flexible syllabus rather than a rigid one for incorporating into the regular curriculum of medical and paramedical education. Only after that one may expect all members of the health care delivery systems to adopt and apply medical informatics optimally as a routine tool for their services.
Suptendra Nath Sarbadhikari

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Three Points about Medical Informatics in India.

As knowledge expands and requires better management, role of I.T in health care can only become more important. India has a large number of trained I.T professionals and is in a position to leverage its Brain power to take Health informatics to new heights. As i have argued before, smart use of health informatics can also help us attain Health rights for all in many ways (lower costs, better quality, better informed patients, e.t.c). Here, i have tried to showcase a few points about Use of Health Informatics in India as well as the various educational courses available within India.

The Three major uses of Health informatics in India
1) For better training of Health care professionals ( includes Doctors, Paramedicals and Non-medicals)- e.learning
2) For improved delivery of high quality health care services to the remote areas.- Telemedicine,EMRs, CDSS.
3) To bring about a transparency in public health care delivery system.(e-governance)- Public participation

The three major obstacles to Health Informatics in India.
1) Inadequate Skills of health care personnel/others
2) Inadequate Physical infrastructure
3) Inadequate access to I.T ( Digital divide).

The Three major Post Graduate Health care Informatics courses in India
1) Medvarsity online P.G Diploma in Medical Informatics. , associated with Apollo group of Hospitals
2) Amrita Institute of Medical sciences MSc/ P.G.Diploma in Medical Informatics , at Kochi,India.
3) Post Graduate Programs at BII (Bioinformatics Institute of India), Noida, with good industry integration.

The Three short Online courses for Medical Informatics in India-
1) eHCF School of Medical Informatics, Delhi provides Certificate course in medical informatics
2) IAHI online course on Health Informatics
3) BII provides various online/distance educations courses in Health care Informatics.

In view of the fast changing world of medical informatics, it is essential to formulate a flexible syllabus rather than a rigid one for incorporating into the regular curriculum of medical and paramedical education. Only after that one may expect all members of the health care delivery systems to adopt and apply medical informatics optimally as a routine tool for their services.
Suptendra Nath Sarbadhikari

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• Global informatics training funding
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Better E.M.Rs to attain "Health Rights for All".

Image via WikipediaHeres a study on how Use of e-prescribing can lower health care costs, and bring health care services closer to all, without discrimination. This study quantifies the enormous savings that can be generated by a simple introduction of one more option within Electronic Medical records to choose the lowest cost generic amongst a preselected list of generic drugs (to ensure quality).

"Electronic prescribing(e-prescribing) systems that allow doctors to select lower cost or generic medications could save $845,000 per 100,000 patients per year and possibly more system-wide, according to findings from a new study.

Doctors using e-prescribing with formulary decision support, which accounted for more than 200,000 filled prescriptions in the study, increased their use of generic prescriptions by 3.3 percent.These changes were above and beyond the increased use of generics that occurred among all doctors and the already high rate of generic drug use in Massachusetts. Based on average costs for private insurers, study authors estimate that the use of e-prescribing could save $845,000 per 100,000 patients per year and generate even higher savings with greater use.

Researchers found that the doctors who wrote electronic prescriptions were slightly younger and more likely to be female than those who did not. In addition, internists, pediatricians, and family physicians made up nearly three-fourths of those who used e-prescribing. Of the 17.4 million prescriptions filled over the course of the study, about 212,000 were prescribed electronically. This study was funded in part by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality"

More use of I.T in health care will have a cascading effect on Health Rights for all as it increases affordability, efficiency, quality and information accessibility of health services. And these are few of the basic requirements of Health Rights for All.

 

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-A Fantastic Medical Informatics conference in India

Just back from the Meditel 2008, the fifth International conference on Medical informatics and Telemedicine. The theme of the conference this year was "ICT for Medical Education and Research" and there were some pretty sharp presentations in Medical e.learning. Hopefully, as promised, most of the presentations would be available on the MCSI website soon.

The few presentations i thoroughly enjoyed included,

• E-Learning- Current trends in India- by Dr.Balasubramanyam, Prof. and head, Dept. of Anatomy, SJMC, Bangalore.

• Cochrane Collaboration- Informed healthcare in South Asia- Dr.Pratap Tharyan

• Improving Healthcare via Transparent monitoring- Mr.Bill Thies, MIT and Microsoft ( use of microchip within pill boxes to monitor compliance in National health programs like DOTS India.)

• World"s first prepaid service for Doctors consultation from any Phone- by Mr.Sunil Kulkarni, Group President, Oxigen Services (India) Pvt. Ltd.( a beautiful concept to allow pre-paying for telephonic medical consultations)

There were a number of other interesting ones, like this Virtual conference using Webex services, via a lowly Tata Indicom plug2surf device !!

To keep in touch with other happenings regarding Medical Informatics in India, subscribe to my Friendfeed or connect to my Del.icio.us account.

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-Futile medications in cancer patients.

With early diagnosis and better therapy, life expectancy/survival in cases of cancer has improved dramatically. In many cases of cancer, all that is required is good palliative care.

Such patients take many medications, and many of them may be unnecessary. Now there is a study regarding Futile medication use in terminally ill cancer patients.

Futile medications were defined as unnecessary ( no anticipated short term benefit to patients for survival, quality of life or symptom control) or duplicate ie 2 or more drugs from the same pharmacological class.

The results were better than i expected. About 20% (only?, i think more) terminally ill cancer patients are on futile medications, most commonly Statins (56%). The most common duplication of medication was for the benzodiazepines class.(no surprises there!).

As a doctor, many-a-times i am "forced" to write medications i know is not required by the patient. I usually use this tactic as a placebo.What do you think of use of such "Futile" medications in cancer patients?

-Cannot treat without I.T support?

We know that wider adoption of healthcare information technology (HIT) results in better patient care. Here, in India, most medical students learn to use HIT after they start working as Doctors. Many medical students use the net to study, at a personal level, but institutional use of IT in Indian Medical colleges and associated hospitals is very low.

But here is a study with a very different perspective regarding HIT.

"About 80 percent of the 328 Vanderbilt graduates who participated in the study were working in an environment with less IT. According to the study, they reported "feeling less able to practice safe patient care, to utilize evidence at the point of care, to work efficiently, to share and communicate information and to work effectively within the local system."

Used to IT support in decision making, Medical students were left flabbergasted when they had to provide healthcare from Knowledge. Definitely not a very good sign.

Read the study on Healthcareitnews here.

-India"s Responsibility it can not shirk- Clear Pakistan of Terrorists"

India faced some tuff 59 hours recently. Its now time to clean up the mess, in all respects.I have also been closely following the Mumbai attacks since Naveen stays at Mumbai.

I want you to watch these videos. They would easily demonstrate India"s responsibility as a World citizen and American ally in going into Pakistan to clean up all the already known+documented+proven terrorist training grounds.

1) President-elect Obama explains that Pakistan is a big problem in War against terror. But it is misusing all its funds in non related Military expenditure and corruption. He also believes he would be stretched if he had to initiate a direct military offensive against Pakistan

2) The following news items ( one of many,with proofs) demonstrating Pakistan
territorial involvement in Mumbai terror attacks.

Ergo, India is expected to Join this war on terror and eliminate the Risks in Pakistan, for Everybodys sake!!Before ending, let me mention that i am a very old member of the India Pakistan friendship club on Orkut.