E.H.R Standards for India : GOI Report

Electronic health records are a summary of the various electronic medical records that get generated during any clinical encounter. Without standards, a lifelong summary is not possible as different records from different sources spread across ~80+ years will potentially need to be brought into one summary. To achieve this, a set of pre-defined standards for information exchange that includes images, clinical codes and a minimum data set is imperative.

Foreword to ‘ E.H.R Standards for India ’ by the GOI.

The Government of India, as it goes for the unveiling of National Health Portal, comes out with a definitive guidelines for E.H.R standards in India. The document takes a look at E.H.R standards to be followed throughout different medical provider institutions in India, so that medical data becomes portable and easily transferable. Its amazing to see how many ehealth companies have been stumped because of lack of such a document earlier. This might be good news for a number of companies which foolishly wait for standards to be finalized, instead of simply building the most Flexible, Secure, Doctor & Patient-friendly E.H.R they can.

More importantly , It takes a look at Data ownership.

It says “The health data is owned by the patient while the actual records are owned by the care providers who act as the custodians of the data. Adequate safeguards to ensure data privacy and security must strictly be adhered to at all times. Patients must have the privilege to verify the accuracy of their health data and gain access whenever they wish to do so.

Thankfully, Patients have earned their spot in our policy making. We know that products which do not have the patient interactions in mind will just not succeed. Now that we have a roadmap ahead, It’s a race to the finish for the nascent ehealth industry in our country.

You can download a copy of the document here.

The Inside Story of National Health Portal of India

National Health Portal of India has been on our minds for a long time. This is the inside story of working for the national health portal of India which is scheduled for launch on 1st October 2013, almost four years after it first came under consideration. It’s a very optimistic project and a wordle created from the project report showcases that very well.

First, some history and background.

Backed by the National Knowledge Commission, a working group committee sent its Project Report on setting and developing the national health portal for India in August 2010. The NKC proposed to launch the National Health Information Portal which would serve as a comprehensive source on health information in India. The portal plans to serve as a single point of access for consolidated health information, application and resources on the sector and aim to cater to a wide spectrum of users from citizens, to students, healthcare professionals and researchers.

The proposal also aims to create space for other portals, publishers, IT and non IT based interventions. It is envisaged that private enterprises would join the government in creating new tools and services with the help of all the Data to be collected via NHP. This is a humungous task by any standards and the progress on the portal has been understandably slow.

A recent meet at AIIMS organized by HIMSS India and attended by Dr. Suptendra Nath Sarbadhikari, Project Director, Centre for Health Informatics of the National Health Portal cleared the mystery surrounding the progress of National Health Portal. During the meet, a lot of time was spent on stressing the need for Uniform Data Standards to be adopted so that all EHRs across the country (private and public hospitals) can be connected to the national health portal. With the addition of Prof. Indrajit Bhattacharya, the team at the National Health Portal is now well positioned to take this project forward.

The meet highlighted 3 main topics of discussion;

1) Data standards and Interoperability

2) Mobile apps for content distribution

3) Social Media Help desk and social networking activities

In order to accumulate data from various state health departments, government hospitals and private hospitals, we need a common system for entering the health data. The GOI has not yet taken the effort to set up a recommended set of data standards which can be followed by all hospitals and institutes while storing data. Unless data standards to be followed are finalized soon, linking/ merging of diverse sets of healthcare data will be close to impossible in the future.

Mobile apps and device agnostic websites were identified as an important next step in the project. The project objective is also to improve health literacy of the masses in India. One immediate hurdle for the National Health Portal is the need for authentic and high quality content in multiple languages.  At this stage, It is not desirable that NHP spends its efforts and money creating original content for education of consumers and healthcare practitioners.Except for a core team (4 or 5) of graphic artists and subject matter experts to create interactive and visual media on a daily/weekly basis, the task of content creation could very well be outsourced. The NHP team can always validate the content after creation and before it is uploaded to the website. Besides, a lot of content is freely available from international sources like Centre For Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization which can be hot-linked on the portal. Professional content curation and dissemination via mobile apps will play a huge role in providing content for the National Health Portal.

Another important consideration at the NHP meet was the creation of a Social Media Helpdesk for the portal. Social Networking is the new fact of our connected lives today and the NHP plans to make full use of existing platforms like Facebook and Twitter to further its agenda. Social Networking would also be utilized via various health Forums planned on the portal. Social Media will be a key component of the content distribution strategy.

The National Health Portal will always be a work in motion. You, too, can have a say in how that happens. We have created a Facebook page for this project. You can join us on Facebook to share your views/suggestions as well as Tweet us your suggestions by using the hashtag #nhportal.  We will make sure all tweets and comments are forwarded to the right authorities.

This update has also been shared on India Health Network website.

Indian Healthcare Industry in the 21st Century

 

 You better start swimmin' Or you'll sink like a stone,

For the times they are a-changin'

- Bob Dylan

Healthcare has been changing in drifts and shifts over the past few centuries and Nothing will ever be the same again.

Tim Berners-Lee (father of Internet) made the biggest financial sacrifice in recent times when he refused to patent his hyper text transfer protocol and instead threw it open for the Aam Aadmi. The times of the mai-baap Doctor are numbered. The patient has taken his rightful place as the center of the new healthcare ecosystem, with all other stakeholders working to woo that customer. The recent regulations regarding generic medications will only strengthen this position. Since patient, and not the doctor, will now make the purchasing decision, all stakeholders in this ecosystem (Pharma, labs, hospitals) need to reconsider their strategies and focus on the true consumer.

Many savvy Indian entrepreneurs have already smelt the coffee. Now, many stages of healthcare services can be accessed online. You can track your health using Smartphone apps and websites. When unwell, you can check your symptoms to arrive at a presumptive diagnosis online. It’s easy to search for a suitable physician in your geographical area who you might want to consult. Compare rates and services at various hospitals. Book your appointments. Receive your lab reports and prescriptions in the comfort of home. Join social support groups and get information about alternate treatments or therapies. Store all your health records digitally and get second opinions from anywhere in the world. Doctors can monitor their patients remotely and even tweak treatments from a distance. They can discuss treatments and obtain referrals in secure online platforms. The effect of Internet and social media is just too huge to be ignored.

To borrow an analogy from Jed Weissberg, MD, Senior Vice at Kaiser Permanente, the Choluteca Bridge is a metaphor for today's healthcare ecosystem. The Choluteca Bridge was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1930 with design strength to withstand the worst of hurricanes that affected the area. When Hurricane Mitch came in 1998, it destroyed 150 Honduran bridges, but not the Choluteca Bridge. Instead, the storm rerouted the Choluteca River. This rendered the huge, strong and beautiful bridge useless as it served no purpose in the changed environment.

The true potential of healthcare social media has not even been scratched on its surface yet. The focus on cloud computing and Big data can work wonders in the field of medical communications. At Digital MedCom solutions, we currently tag 30,000 Indian physicians via weekly emails and popular social media platforms. Our aim to have an active social database of all 500,000 practicing Indian physicians (or at least the approx. 250,000 active onliners) within the next 2 years is not as farfetched as it may seem. All the stakeholders in healthcare, except the patient, seem to be ignoring social media at present. Unless steps are taken to remedy this inertia, traditional healthcare industry is destined to go the Choluteca Bridge way.

The Medscapeindia (MSI) Awards 2012 Nominations Are Open

The Medscapeindia was established as an "foundation pursuing a socio-scientific aim" in the year 2010. Medscapeindia serves as a platform that unites doctors for discussion and debate on relevant subjects. And now the inaugural MSI Awards "Recognizing excellence in Healthcare" nominations are open.

Today, the healthcare and medical sector faces myriad problems unique to this niche in India. Ethical guidelines need to be evolved around sensitive subjects such as doctors' communication with patients, pharma-industry sponsored continued medical education (CME), female foeticide, new regulations for fire-safety etc and many more. The Medscapeindia looks to bridge the gap between healthcare professionals and policy making.

Dr. Sunita Dube is the President of The Medscapeindia Foundation.

Health Tablets Proposed For Public Health In India

India has increased planned expenditure in healthcare to 2.5 % .  While this is a big jump from the previous 1% of GDP, do note that it is about 5% to 10% in most civilized countries. The Indian government is now betting big on technology and eHealth. Faced with shameful data collection practices, health ministry officials are now looking at using Tablets to improve collection of health data and also improve quality of healthcare service provided at peripheral areas. 

In the news almost simultaneously this week were 2 specialized tablets to be used for healthcare service providers in India.

The Kalam-Raju tablet is the result of collaboration between the former President of India, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, and well known cardiologist Dr. B. Soma Raju of Care Foundation. This Kalam-Raju tablet will help physicians and certified nurse practitioners in rural areas access patient information, diagnostic tools and new treatment procedures. The tablet shall be out within 3 to 6 months.

Also unveiled this week was another  Android based Health tablet, the "Swasthya Slate"  reportedly capable of providing enough information to make clinical judgements. The tablet can record body temperature, conduct ECG, test blood sugar and blood pressure, measure heart rate and also test quality of water. This is the braibchild of Kanav Kahol, a US-returned Indian biomedical engineer and is being dubbed as the first-of-its kind diagnostic tool. Swasthya Slate is likely to be ready for operation in next three months. 

This is a demo of the Swasthya Slate to a class of medical officers in Odisha

Wikipedia Is The Most Popular Professional Web 2.0 Tool Among Doctors

Physicians are making increasing use of the social web. A recent study by  Insight Research Group (pdf) looked at use of social web by 300 primary care doctors in the first quarter of 2011, drawing equal numbers from Germany, Italy and the UK.

Here is the gist of the research.

• The agency found 69% of European physicians said they used some form of social media for work, whereas 85% of them made personal use of social media.
• Wikipedia to be the most popular destination there. 60% of doctors surveyed said they used Wikipedia professionally.
• After Wikipedia, the most popular sites were YouTube (used professionally by 18% of respondents ), Facebook (5.7%), LinkedIn (4.7%) and Twitter (1.3%).

Niche professional uses of community resources like Wikipedia, Youtube and Facebook is now finding acceptance within the professional medical circles. With more than 60,000 Indian doctors on Facebook out of an estimated total of 700,000 doctors in India, Expect to see a similar scenario in India within 2 to 3 years.

Related articles

• How Is Social Media Used In Healthcare: Infographic (edrneelesh.blogspot.com)
• International Social Media Trends (beingyourbrand.wordpress.com)

Health 2.0 India Is A Grand Success: Highlights

Health 2.0 was finally in India. On 30th Jan 2012, innovations in use of technology in health and healthcare were showcased at this one day event held at New Delhi. Also held was a code-a-thon which saw 5 fantastic apps developed in 6 hours!

Listed here are some of the highlights from the event.

Publicis Healthware International used this event to launch its India presence. PHI is part of Publicis Healthcare Communications Group (PHCG), the largest healthcare communications network in the world. Roberto Ascione, President of PHI showcased their most recent product, Videum.com.

Videum is a global health video portal able to globalize video assets leveraging an exclusive subtitling technology and featuring unparalleled search engine optimization. In a multilingual country like India ( with at least 30 languages spoken by more than a million people each), Videum.com promises to break this very significant barrier to health communication.Videum is a joint venture between Publicis Healthware International (PHI) and dotSUB.

Also shown at Health 2.0 was Kazemill. This innovative tool analyzes tweets to look for 6 common symptoms presented by people suffering from cold and maps them. Tool from McCann Healthcare.

Dr. Anirudh Malpani , an IVF specialist and a keen Health IT enthusiast, presented his HELP initiative, the world's largest free patient education library. You can also view their video channel here.

Ash Damle showcased his very useful MEDgle product for the audience, a personalized medical search and secure private discussion network.

Rajiv Pratap demonstrated the awesome capability of Abzooba, a unique healthcare communication product. Abzooba's Smart Health Information Platform (SHIP) is a collaborative knowledge platform that brings health providers and patients together in an interactive community. Too bad we couldn't find a video to  showcase the outstanding features of Abzooba.

On show was also India's largest healthcare community, mDhil.com . Nandu Madhava, CEO, heads this innovative project which provides health information via online and mobile channels.mDhil averages 5000 video views per day and has more than 150,000 followers on Facebook. Their marketing strategies rely heavily on social media and they are now looking to expand into providing many other types of healthcare information via their varied distribution channels. Do check the mDhil Health channel on Youtube.

Kunal Sinha, CEO, HealthcareMagic.com provided his solution for improving access to healthcare. HealthcareMagic is a portal allowing live interaction between doctors and patients over the internet and on the phone, creating an integrated comparison-shopping environment for health-related products and services.

Other interesting presentations included:

• The Cheetah Development Project by Dr. Mark Ereth of Mayo Clinic, an innovative initiative where they have boosted the local economy so as to be able to provide healthcare in Tanzania. 
• Pharmsecure providing ways to authenticate genuine drugs and safeguard patients from fake drugs.
• Innovative route to culturally sensitive ways of providing HIV Aids information by TeachAIDS
• Ayurvaid for individualized sustained care across the patient's life-cycle.
• Health SuperHiway, an integrated cloud based health information network.
• And the most interesting talk by Mr. Anil Swarup, the architect of India's National insurance scheme, which is "light on the front-end and technology heavy back-end".

Also on display were Mediphone , a call-a-doctor service from Healthfore and some innovative eHealth solutions from Plus 91 Technologies.

Check some tweets  to see the reactions from Tweeple.

• Selected Tweets From Health 2.0 India Event #health2india (edrneelesh.blogspot.com)

Cisco Helping Provide Healthcare For All In India

The vast distances and the low density of healthcare professionals require extensive use of telemedicine to enable Healthcare For All in India. Cisco, the technology and networking giant, recently (9th November, 2011) announced the launch of its Cisco healthcare solution pilot in collaboration with Government of Madhya Pradesh.

Using the telepresence solution provided by Cisco, patients in remote primary health centers will now be able to consult specialist doctors present at far away district hospitals in real time. The patients will be helped in this by the nurses and other paramedicals present at the rural setups.In total, eleven community/primary health care centres across four districts of Sehore, Datia, Gwalior, and Chhindwara will be connected to district hospitals remotely using Cisco Healthcare Solution.

Check this video for a demonstration of how the system will work:

Related articles

• Cisco Builds More Mobility Into Telehealth Platform (informationweek.com)
• Can Cisco positively impact the Health of our population and Healthcare Ecosystem? (blogs.cisco.com)
• Doctors Slow To Embrace Telemedicine, Cloud Computing (informationweek.com)
• How WWW Has Changed Healthcare Over 20 Years (digital-medicine.blogspot.com)

Indian Medical Association Plans Programs to Make Members Tech Savvy

The potential of improving Healthcare quality by proper use of technology is immense.Recent advances in information technology offer clinicians valuable new tools to support the medical management of patients. HIT has the potential to enable a dramatic transformation in the delivery of health care, making it safer, more effective, and more efficient.

The national unit of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has decided to make its two lakh members across the country, especially senior medical practitioners, more tech savvy. The National vice-president of IMA, Dr Devendra Shirole says,“Short contact programs of four days will be organized at all local branches of the IMA. Doctors will be trained on how to use information technology for the betterment of medical profession and patents’ data collection.” He said the doctors will be also trained on using e-books in their daily practice.

The IMA will launch this project initially in Maharashtra and the inauguration will take place in Mumbai. Groups, formed for research purposes, will use information technology to study diseases and viruses.To undertake this vast project, talks are on with software companies to provide trainings and technical support, as well as help IMA build web pages for the same.

Also See:

• Costs and Benefits of Health Information Technology
• Technoclinics- Upcoming scenario in India

Healthcareworld 2010- Medical tradeshow in India

HealthcareWorld 2010, a medical exhibition organised by Express Healthcare, has been planned with one point mission="to bring its exhibitors the audiences they want". It would also provide a green zone, seminar and an award show.


HealthcareWorld 2010 is being organised by the Express Group and Express Healthcare, India's leading Healthcare Business Magazine. Federation of Hospital Administration (FHA) and The Association of Hospitals (AOH) are the supporting associations for this tradeshow. Manipal Hospital, Bangaluru, Jaslok Hospital, Mumbai, PD Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai, Dr LH Hiranandani Hospital, Mumbai, Kerala Institute Of Medical Sciences, Thiruvananthapuram and Max Healthcare are supporting HealthcareWorld 2010. Hosmac is a knowledge partner and BOC, a member of The Linde Group, is associating with HealthcareWorld 2010 as a Green Zone Partner.


Dr Vivek Desai, Managing Director, Hosmac India Private Limited, hopes that "Such a forum will help create better relationship between various stakeholders in a fragmented but rapidly growing healthcare industry. It will also sensitise people to new technologies which helps integrate functions, thereby improving efficiency."




The main events planned for this forum include-

• HealthcareLive

* HealthcareLive is a strategic zone that will let you build real-life, real-time models for ICU, critical care, imaging and diagnostics.
* It will also bring the very decision makers you seek into direct contact with your product.
* With HealthcareLive you will get an opportunity to let the industry know your product USP and why it need to be on their 'Must Buy' list.

• Healthcare Roundtables

* Healthcare Roundtables will feature opinion leaders and experts discussing key healthcare issues.
* These Roundtables will be held for key segments like critical care, imaging, diagnostics and IT.
* This will build interest and provide maximum mileage for these key segments.

• Green Zone

This unique concept with the name Green Zone will be held in a special pavilion on the emerging environment friendly technology segment.


* Green Zone will bring together leading companies, technology providers, consultants and decision makers.
* GreenHealthcare Seminar will bring along consultations with key prospects.

• Meet the Consultants

* Meeting with consultants will bring together Medical Directors, Nursing Homes, Managers, HODs, & CTOs with leading consultants.
* There will be consultant booths for one-on-one meetings and roundtables featuring guest speakers.
* This will provide the perfect opportunity to the companies who seek to reach and influence key decision makers across the industry.

• Launch Site

* Launch Site is going to be for companies looking for the perfect platform to launch their latest offerings.
* Launch Site will provide a special stage and a space will also be allotted for collateral/ posters/ demonstration/ presentation.
* It will be aggressively promoted at the event and will be staged between 3 pm to 4 pm on all days.


Visitor Profile-
* Doctors/ Specialists
* Hospital Managers and HODs
* Medical Directors
* Diagnostic Centers
* Biomedical Engineers
* Health Care Services
* Investors for Health Care Industry
* Healthcare Services
* Investors for Healthcare Industry
* Medical Professionals
* Medical Research Institutes
* Diagnostic Centers
* Clinical Laboratories
* Rehabilitation Organisations
* lCare Services & Self-help groups


HealthcareWorld 2010 promises to be a "Happening" conference and i hope to see a lot of "Bright ideas" there.

Related articles

• Best health care companies to work at. (neeleshbhandari.blogspot.com)
• Free Health Directory List (slideshare.net)

Top 9 e-quipped Hospitals in India

The Cybermetrics Lab recently published their world ranking of hospitals, taking into account the instituion"s activities in field of e-knowledge and their use of digital media for communications.

Supporting Open Access initiatives, electronic access to scientific publications and to other academic material are our primary targets...The Web covers not only only formal (e-journals, repositories) but also informal scholarly communication.

The Web indicators measure electronic contents, especially those used for scholarly communication, but also basic information about the hospital, its organization, services and personnel. The rank takes into account both the volume of information published and the impact or visibility of such contents measured by the number of external links the web pages receive from others. As expected, about 45 % of top 200 and 38% of top 1000 hospitals are situated in North America.




The Laparoscopy hospital at N.Delhi is the only Indian hospital to figure in the top 100 hospitals from Asia ( 47/100, Asia), and also the only Indian hospital in top 500 worldwide. Amongst the others, Sir Gangaram hospital scores much better than Apollo and Tata Memorial.

L.R.S Institute of Tuberculosis and respiratory diseases records a very enviable world rank of 19, in number of papers and citations visible on Google Scholar., a noteworthy list headed by The Institute of Cancer Research, London.
Below is the list of 9 hospitals from India in the first 2000 worldwide , and their world rankings ( as per Cybermetrics Lab).

			POSITION
WORLD RANK	HOSPITAL		SIZE	VISIBILITY	RICH FILES	SCHOLAR
279	Laparoscopy Hospital		406	749	599	140
624	Sir Ganga Ram Hospital		2,351	788	1,834	225
632	Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre		1,015	1,429	1,174	179
921	Aravind Eye Care System		1,567	2,717	766	146
1178	Sankara Nethralaya Hospital		2,690	984	1,224	2,200
1349	L.R.S. Institute of Tuberculosis & Respiratory Diseases		2,845	6,679	1,070	19
1407	Apollo Hospitals		3,045	938	3,453	2,200
1819	Tata Memorial Centre		2,459	3,469	322	1,497
1885	Sri Ramachandra University & Medical Centre		1,742	3,787	1,660	426

India needs IT based health delivery system

Image by drneelesh via Flickr

New Delhi: The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) International Advisory Panel Chairperson Jeffrey Sachs has called upon India to implement IT based health delivery system in the country.

The Columbia University Professor, while praising India's effort for closing gap on the health mission under the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) with the other countries, however, said that the country needs to make more investment in the sector. "India should step up the budgetary allocation in health sector to four to five per cent of the GDP," Sachs said adding that a higher investment in the health sector will give great social returns.

Calling the NRHM as one of the most remarkable achievements in public health sector, he said that India's dramatic improvement in the health sector have been made possible due to enhanced partnership between the centre, state and local units.

Sachs, who is also the advisor to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, said that the increase in institutional delivery and drop in mortality is especially impressive.

Arguing for an IT-based health delivery system, Sachs added that India can serve as a role model for other countries in the health sector.Having travelled to a few Indian states, he also said that there is, however, a need for more human resources and logistical support.

He was speaking with the media after a meeting with the Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss and the senior officials of the Ministry for the fifth meeting of the Panel in New Delhi on Tuesday. The advisory panel meeting was also attended by Health Ministers of three African countries— Kenyan Minister for Medical Services Peter Anyag ‘Nyong' O, Malawi Minister of Health Khumbo Kachali, and Rawanda's Minister of Health Rechard Sezibera

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India needs IT based health delivery system

Image by drneelesh via Flickr

The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) International Advisory Panel Chairperson Jeffrey Sachs has called upon India to implement IT based health delivery system in the country.
The Columbia University Professor, while praising India's effort for closing gap on the health mission under the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) with the other countries, however, said that the country needs to make more investment in the sector. "India should step up the budgetary allocation in health sector to four to five per cent of the GDP," Sachs said adding that a higher investment in the health sector will give great social returns.

Arguing for an IT-based health delivery system, Sachs added that India can serve as a role model for other countries in the health sector.Having travelled to a few Indian states, he also said that there is, however, a need for more human resources and logistical support.

The advisory panel meeting was attended  by Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss and the Health Ministers of three African countries— Kenyan Minister for Medical Services Peter Anyag ‘Nyong' O, Malawi Minister of Health Khumbo Kachali, and Rawanda's Minister of Health Rechard Sezibera.

India needs IT based health delivery system

Image by drneelesh via Flickr

New Delhi: The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) International Advisory Panel Chairperson Jeffrey Sachs has called upon India to implement IT based health delivery system in the country.

The Columbia University Professor, while praising India's effort for closing gap on the health mission under the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) with the other countries, however, said that the country needs to make more investment in the sector. "India should step up the budgetary allocation in health sector to four to five per cent of the GDP," Sachs said adding that a higher investment in the health sector will give great social returns.

Calling the NRHM as one of the most remarkable achievements in public health sector, he said that India's dramatic improvement in the health sector have been made possible due to enhanced partnership between the centre, state and local units.

Sachs, who is also the advisor to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, said that the increase in institutional delivery and drop in mortality is especially impressive.

Arguing for an IT-based health delivery system, Sachs added that India can serve as a role model for other countries in the health sector.Having travelled to a few Indian states, he also said that there is, however, a need for more human resources and logistical support.

He was speaking with the media after a meeting with the Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss and the senior officials of the Ministry for the fifth meeting of the Panel in New Delhi on Tuesday. The advisory panel meeting was also attended by Health Ministers of three African countries— Kenyan Minister for Medical Services Peter Anyag ‘Nyong' O, Malawi Minister of Health Khumbo Kachali, and Rawanda's Minister of Health Rechard Sezibera

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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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-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.