The Hindu Business Line : Toning up healthcare

IF technology can be used to make services and delivery more effective, healthcare wants a bit of the action too. And both Government and the private sector are pitching in to make healthcare more responsive.

eWorld takes a look at software solutions developed by companies and how they seek to make things better for healthcare providers.

Medinous Health Systems, a subsidiary of Nous Infosystems, has developed Medinous, a Hospital Management System that can be deployed both at multi speciality hospitals and small clinics. The company works with over 100 global corporations, primarily in the healthcare, education and retail sectors.

Mathew Abraham, Regional Manager-Sales, Asia-Pacific, Nous Infosystems, says, "Medinous has been developed and perfected over the years from a user perspective. Initially we started focusing on hospitals in the Middle East. With healthcare an important area of focus in India today, we have started concentrating on the Indian market.

The Vydehi Institute of Medical Sciences, Bangalore, is one of the first hospitals that have used our system."

Medinous is available in three versions — Medinous Enterprise, Medinous Basic and Medinous Lite. They can be deployed across a wide platform — from small clinics to large multi-and super specialty hospitals across geographies.

High-tech laboratory and radiology equipment can also be integrated into the systems.

Medinous Enterprise comprises 19 modules. It is most suitable for medium and large multi speciality hospitals. It can handle functions such as registration, financial accounting, payroll, outpatient and inpatient management, pharmacy, radiology, nuclear medicine and other services.

The Medinous Basic consists of six simple modules designed for small hospitals and large medical centres or clinics, while Medinous Lite is a stand-alone application suitable for small clinics and medical centres.

Vijayanand, Manager, Administration, Vydehi Institute, says, "Medinous HMS was our first IT implementation. To begin with, we implemented the patient-billing module.

As we have a large number of outpatients, it helped greatly in enabling us have a complete overview of the patient in terms of profile and history, payment details, appointments and visits."

Towards telemedicine

The poor often postpone that crucial but expensive and time-consuming visit to the city for improved treatment simply because they cannot afford it. Telemedicine helps tackle just this. It provides healing from the specialist at a fraction of the cost and in the comfort of being with the familiar trusted neighbourhood doctor speaking the local language.

Software like Polycom PVX, developed by Polycom Inc, helps make telemedicine possible.

Polycom is a provider of unified collaborative communications — converged voice, video, Web, and data solutions for emerging broadband networks. Its features made the Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation adopt the SP and MP 384 (versions of the ViewStation) as well as the FX and Via Video.

"The software did not generate great savings in terms of cost or time or manpower since telemedicine is not a money-spinner.

However, it is a great way of reaching out to the masses and given the fact that 80 per cent of the specialists are in the cities, telemedicine fulfils undeniable health needs," says Dr D. Lavanian, Business Manager — Telemedicine, Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation.

"We are trying to make the learning curve as flat as possible and showcasing telemedicine as a convenient tool for the doctor, just like a stethoscope. It has to be as user-friendly, or rather doctor-friendly, as possible. Some doctors now want to set up telemedicine facilities at home.

We are working to bring costs down," says Yugal Sharma, Country Manager, Polycom, India.

The telemedicine equipment could vary, he says. It could be a small desktop to a large screen.

There are several packages that Polycom offers, and banks offer loans to doctors who want to set up these facilities. The costs of installation are recovered in very little time.

Apollo's very first telemedicine centre was equipped with Polycom software, which is now installed in more than 60 centres.

Escort, Narayana Hryudayalaya, is another hospital using Polycom's VC solutions.

In 2003, Apollo treated 6,000 patients using Polycom's VC solution, and Lavanian believes in time this number will multiply.

Shot in the arm

India is ready to meet global challenges and is creating software for the National Health Scheme, UK.

Designed at the research facility at Chennai, Lorenzo, developed by iSoft, is a set of information processing tools that supports free flow of information — from hospitals to whole health economies.

It can be deployed throughout a community or made to co-exist and inter-operate with existing installed systems.

The i.Series applications cater to a hospital's information systems requirements, including patient, clinical, laboratory, theatre and financial management.

It caters to the needs of a broad spectrum of healthcare professionals — from clinical and nursing staff, to business and financial managers, from medical records teams to laboratory specialists.

Although Lorenzo is yet to be used in the Indian market, Ravan Boddu, CEO, iSoft India, says, "Lorenzo is conceived, developed and will be delivered out of the Indian development centre. Imagine a product completely developed in India redefining concepts of global healthcare.

We are offering tremendous opportunities to the IT talent pool in India to work on cutting-edge technologies."

As more such initiatives come to fruition, the use of IT in Indian healthcare is set to develop into a very healthy trend.

paromita@thehindu.co.in

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