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L.N. Revathy

A Coimbatore hospital is using software to help the doc manage his schedule and cut patient waiting time.

A VISIT to a clinic/nursing home is an onerous task for most of us. Worse still if one is really unwell. Either the doctor is in, attending a patient or he is on call. Either way, the wait makes the patient more impatient. But if the medical practitioner manages to stick to his schedule, would it not help in minimising the wait?

May be, but the crowd (signalling an indefinite wait) at a healthcare centre tends to put one off. But what about regular check-ups with prior appointment? Can you recall an instance where the doctor has waited for you instead of the other way round?

No doubt doctors are busy as their number is relatively few when compared to the Indian population (it is learnt that there are only about five doctors serving approximately 20-30 panchayats in interior India). Does that mean that the long wait can never be resolved?

"It definitely is possible. Technology has paved the way," says Dr Nandakumar of Aparna Hospital. Incidentally, it has no super speciality ward, but is equipped with 25 beds on the outskirts of Coimbatore. The rural populace flocks to the place.

And this is how technology helps there. The front-office assistant registers the patient's demographic details, thereby simplifying the doctor's task of keying in all the details. Thereafter every step is systematically documented.

"As soon as the patient enters the hospital, the time is punched on the card, signalling the wait. To the best possible extent, we try and manage time. Time management is very important," says Nandakumar.

The time planning has been effective, so much so that the hospital is drawing crowds since the patients have realised that they will not have to wait long for their turn to meet the doctor. "We fix an appointment from home, visit the hospital just before the allotted slot, consult the doctor and leave," says a patient.

According to him, the hospital has, since implementing the Medisoft-Clinic package, managed to improve its bottomline. `Earlier, we had engaged more than three persons in the front office for recording the patients' details manually. Now a single person is able to handle the entire load. The work is not much, except in new cases, where the demographic details of the patient would have to be keyed in. The accuracy levels have gone up, efficiency improved and productivity levels have also increased. We are able to plan and review more cases. A 70 per cent saving in manpower wages is visible', he says.

Can just registration of patient details and prior appointment make all this difference, for most hospitals do this?

This is a basic document in an electronic format, says Nandakumar. "We also maintain visit-wise information in the eFormat, as a record. This has to a great extent helped us in tackling medico-legal cases. The system is transparent and the software user-friendly."

Accident cases come up for hearing after two or three years and the court asks for details such as the time and place of accident, nature of injury, minor/major, etc. When done manually, it takes almost one day (in the case of bigger hospitals) or a couple of hours in smaller ones) to get the records, he says. Sometimes, such details are not available. But in the eFormat, the doctor is able to retrieve the details in 20 to 30 minutes and produce these documents in a printed form — including Xray and other (MRI/CT) scan details — before the court.

As in a departmental store, most nursing homes do have a PC, but most of them are reluctant to put the software to optimal use, content with preparing just the income and expenditure statement, says Rangaswamy of Consolidated Cybernetics. The Medisoft Clinic package, according to him, is a very basic package, aimed at enhancing the service quality, strengthening the bottomline and establishing a personal rapport with the patient, which in turn would strengthen the bond between the doctor and the patient.

And just to place the opportunity in context, here are a few statistics for the Indian market: India's healthcare industry is currently worth Rs 73,000-crore, roughly 4 per cent of the GDP. The industry is expected to grow at the rate of 13 per cent for the next six years, which would amount to an addition of Rs 9,000 crore each year.

With global revenues of approximately $2.8 trillion, the healthcare industry is the world's largest industry and India is emerging as a major player in this industry because of its high population. According to a recent study, there are 315 million potentially insurable lives in the country.

A World Health Organisation report states that India needs to add 80,000 hospital beds each year to meet the demand of its population.

lnr@thehindu.co.in

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