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L.N. Revathy

After taking over as Director (Administration) of the 50-bed Senthil Hospital in Coimbatore, Hema found the going tough, managing kids, home and work. Her father-in-law and husband — both doctors and owners of the hospital — decided to concentrate on their profession and leave the administration work to Hema, who realised that she could hardly devote four to five hours a day to even glance at the ‘Medisoft Doctor’s Dashboard’.

(The Medisoft Doctor’s Dashboard is a summary of the total collections, such as outpatient and inpatient collections in cash, credit card and cheques, lab and pharmacy collections, keyed by the different departments.)

Elsewhere, at a hospital in Salem, Ashok encountered a similar problem. His parents owned the Gopi Hospital and had delegated the administration job to their son, who kept shunting between Salem and Chennai — where he had his own business.

In just such a space, this technology player saw a business opportunity.

Taking the cue from cricket score alerts on one’s mobile, withdrawal of cash beyond a certain amount from the bank, or SMS about one’s credit card/mobile bill, the Coimbatore-based Consolidated Cybernetics, a provider of healthcare solutions for hospitals under the Medisoft brand, offered Hema and Ashok, among others, its ‘Medisoft Eagle Eye’ solution.

This is “a mobile alert, an update of the performance, wherever you are, at a scheduled time or any time. The Medisoft Hospital Management system will automatically update the required information and flash the same as an SMS alert on the specified mobile number,” says Rangaswamy, Managing Director of Consolidated Cybernetics.

“Since the text message on a mobile can accept only up to 160 characters, we offer our customers the option to choose seven out of 10 pieces of information that they would like to receive as alerts. The information includes — the number of outpatients registered (new and review at hourly/or intervals specified), total number of in-patients (including admissions and discharges), outpatient and inpatient billing amount and cash collection, pharmacy and lab collection, number of tests done at the lab and so on.”

These are vital for a hospital’s operational performance. One can monitor the pulse of the hospital from anywhere across the globe, says Rangaswamy.

Hema seems quite content with the offering. “I have asked for an hourly update. Since I am able to get it on real time, it is easy to catch up with the work, even if I spend just a couple of hours at the hospital.” Further, a working capital management plan would ensure that the anticipated cash needs are met, she adds.

lnr@thehindu.co.in

More Stories on : M-Commerce | Medical Institutions & Hospitals

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