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.

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.

Top 10 Health Technology Hazards For 2013

The evolution of healthcare information technology systems such as electronic health records (EHRs) has definitely helped improve quality and efficiency in healthcare. At the same time, there’s a growing level of complexity and opportunity for error. With increasing use of technology in healthcare, healthcare providers need to be wary of the associated risks with its use.

Now in its sixth year, ECRI Institute publishes an annual list of top hazards of technology in healthcare. The Top 10 Health Technology Hazards list is updated each year based upon the prevalence and severity of incidents reported to ECRI Institute by healthcare facilities nationwide; information found in the Institute’s medical device problem reporting databases; and the judgment, analysis, and expertise of the organization’s multidisciplinary staff. Here are the group’s estimation of the most probable hazards which might crop up in 2013 because of use of technology in healthcare.

1.  Alarm hazards

2.  Medication administration errors using infusion pump

3.  Unnecessary radiation exposures and radiation burns during diagnostic radiology procedures

4.  Patient/data mismatches in EHRs and other health IT (HIT) systems

5.  Interoperability failures with medical devices and health IT systems

6. Air embolism hazards

7. Inattention to the needs of pediatric patients when using “adult” technologies

8. Inadequate reprocessing of endoscopic devices and surgical instruments

9. Caregiver distractions from smartphones and other mobile devices

10. Surgical fires

You can download the original report by registering here.

Here are the lists of Top hazards for 2010. for 2011 and for 2012

Photo credit: @Jacobsons on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Doctors Need To Plan Out Their Social Media Strategy

The Internet has really changed the way we deliver (and define) healthcare. As Social media becomes a synonym for the internet (much like email used to be once upon a time), Doctors need to take time to create a proper social media policy and plan to provide service through that channel.

Mayo Clinic has always taken a lead in adopting social media for healthcare. Check out this new video from them featuring Farris Timimi, M.D., Cardiologist and Medical Director of Mayo Clinic's Center for Social Media discussing the role and use of social media in health care.

Dr. Timimi shares that meeting the needs of today's patient requires adjusting to the new standard of physician-patient relationship. "I think what we're all seeing is a change in the relationship between patients and providers. The typical compact that we knew 20 years ago, where the provider guided therapy on their own, I think all of us are aware that's no longer the case. There's more and more interest in a shared process. These tools help us reach so many people and make that transition more of a reality. We can reach people everywhere and bring shared interactions to all parts of our practice. That's powerful!"

Related articles

• Social Media Policy Essentials For Healthcare Organizations (edrneelesh.blogspot.com)
• Why Hospitals Need To Have A Social Media Policy (edrneelesh.blogspot.com)
• How Is Social Media Used In Healthcare: Infographic (edrneelesh.blogspot.com)

The Zorg 2.0 (Health2.0) Event in Nijmegen

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Have a look at the presentations and you will see how to make healtcare more transparant and make the best use of web 2.0 tools to enhance communication and interaction between patient and healtcare professionals.



The Zorg 2.0(Health2.0) Event in Nijmegen

Experts in Online marketing, Health IT professionals, entrepreneurs and many others gathered to discuss the best use of Web 2.0 in Health care.

Points of note which emerged include-

• Arrange the care around the patients and not around the doctors.

• Train your staff to deal with, to engage and emerge in this vision of health care.

• Choose your applications wisely to get, use, adapt or even create your own best applied use of it in your organization.

• It is not about the tools, but about the whole process and work flow around health care and your vision.

It was a great success. The range of talks and perspectives was very broad, but also gave a number of specific good examples of good practice in Health2.0 projects.

Wish i could have attended. But i have the next best thing on my Screen via all the numerous Blogs, Photos, twitter updates and videos.

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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.