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.

Social Media To Be The Commonest Source Of Continuing Medical Education

Social Media is the commonest use of Internet. Everyone uses the internet to access their emails and Facebook accounts. A Google search engine is the gateway to all information for most of us. These platitudes of an everyday normal life also apply to physicians.

Communication technology has made things easy for doctors. Keeping up-to-date with medical advances has become an easy part of everyday life and not restricted to events like conferences or receiving prints of journal publications. Recent publications have highlighted the importance of social media in continuing medical education. In a recent large study, 70% of doctors were found to have accessed new medical content via social media every month.

Social media integrated medical content platforms like India Cardiology 2.0 and India Rheumatology 2.0 make it easier to read, share and discuss the latest studies and articles within the niche. Such platforms let readers (which in most cases are doctors) recommend and easily share the relevant study on their Facebook wall. Reader recommendations on the website are used to list the most visible studies. On such social media integrated medical content platforms, Readers can choose to stay updated via email (enewsletter) or via Facebook page or Twitter. So, for example, on liking India Cardiology 2.0 Facebook page the latest news and articles in Cardiology shall be visible to readers on their Facebook wall stream. Readers can also use common social media platforms including LinkedIn and Google plus to recommend the article to his/her own friend circle with pertinent comments.

Similarly, following @incardiology on Twitter will let a reader receive all new updates in his/her twitter stream/wall. Such platforms make finding and sharing relevant items so much simpler for medical professionals.

Social media and emails are well ingrained into our daily lives. Its time doctors make professional uses of such tools too.

Freeing Medical Data: Video

Technology has enabled us to collect vast amounts of medical data from myriad sources. But most of this data is locked in silos and unavailable for use by researchers. Performing a medical or genomic experiment on a human requires informed consent and careful boundaries around privacy. But what if the data that results, once scrubbed of identifying marks, was released into the wild?

At WeConsent.us, John Wilbanks thinks through the ethical and procedural steps to create an open, massive, mine-able database of data about health and genomics from many sources.

Ten Best TEDMED 2011 Videos And Takeaways

TEDMED is a medical technology conference eagerly awaited by all of us. In 2011, it was held in Feb-March at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center, but the videos have only recently been uploaded on YouTube.

You can watch the Top 10 videos here.

Also check out this PowerPoint about Top 10 takeaways from the TEDMED 2011 gathering:

10 TEDMED 2011 Takeaways from Luminary Labs

View more presentations from Luminary Labs

Related articles

• Exploring What We Don't Know at TEDMED 2011 (rwjfblogs.typepad.com)

How WWW Has Changed Healthcare Over 20 Years

Nothing has overwhelmed the world as quickly as the WWW. Twenty years ago (on 6th august, 1991) the World Wide Web was thrown open for the public ( Thanks to Tim Berners-Lee). Since then, billions of people have joined each other online and converted this into a social platform like no other.

The web has also changed the way healthcare is practiced and delivered. Check this video by Life Healthcare Agency



Also See:

• NHS Direct plans to use Facebook to provide medical advice . 
• How the internet is changing healthcare.
• Sixty-one percent of all U.S. adults have used the Internet to look for health or medical information
  
• The Internet's impact on healthcare

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

Need for skilled personnel in Healthcare services

I have been a strict proponent of increasing use of eHealth tools to ensure democratization of better quality health services, best quality healthcare and paperless clean environment for ALL.

Availability of a skilled workforce is definitely one very obvious obstacle in countries like India and Brazil.One of the challenges to implementing health information and communication technology is the need for a skilled workforce that understands health care, information and communication technology, and the people and organizational challenges involved. The intersection of these areas is commonly known as the discipline of biomedical and health informatics (or health informatics for short)

This paper explains the need for skilled and trained professionals for better utilization of information technology and the various peculiarities faced in Developing countries.

E-health and m-health applications hold vast promise to improve global health. As these projects develop, leaders need to be cognizant of the need for a well-trained workforce to lead their implementation. An ideal approach will include needs assessment as well as education and training opportunities for that workforce. Successful local examples can be expanded into larger networks whose scale can be leveraged to more rapidly and effectively disseminate them. Such an approach should also foster the establishment of academic partnerships and centers of excellence in education and research in developing countries for sustainable capacity building while still being responsive to local needs

Read the original article on Health Affairs.

Related articles

• eHealth technology improves patient safety (avantrasara.com)
• ePatients.net answers FAQs regarding IT in health care. (medical-communication.blogspot.com)

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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-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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Meditel 2008 @ Chennai, India

Chennai-Image via Wikipedia
The use of ICT ( Information and communication technologies) for Health care in India is still very limited. Most of the efforts in this direction are sporadic and rudderless.There is no dearth of skilled manpower in this field, but a unified plan of action is still awaited.

Medical computer society of India has taken the lead to organize a national conference on Medical informatics and Telemedicine. Under the leadership of Dr.Sunil Shroff, eminent Nephrologist and President of MCSI, the fifth national conference on Medical informatics and telemedicine is scheduled to take place at Sri Ramchandra Medical College & Research Institute, Chennai on 19th-20th December, 2008.

"The conference (as in the past) will bring together decision makers, policy makers, practicing clinicians, healthcare educators and researchers, health administrators, health technologists and IT vendors.Meditel 2008 offers a platform to meet, interact and network with qualified specialists, users, buyers, healthcare providers, industry representatives, researchers and policy makers from India and abroad.

The event will showcase successful products in the Indian healthcare environment and discuss the challenges in their implementation. The use of ICT for 'Health Education & Research'’ is the theme of this conference.

Meditel 2008 will feature an exhaustive conference program with more than 100 presentations along with workshops on a wide variety of topics to learn about what is latest in e-health and the likely future trends."

I was a part of Meditel 2006 and can vouch for the quality of discussions held at Centre for Digital Health, Amrita institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi, Kerala.It proved extremely useful to me then and I expect a similar experience this year.