Data Revolution in Healthcare and Lifesciences Industry

The Mobile Healthcare Industry summit brought up all the stakeholders to discuss and share views on the best practices all across the world. The Post Conference Workshop led by me on “Mobile Healthcare Models for emerging markets” provided a participating opportunity for all players in the ecosystem to clearly define and strategize Challenges as well as opportunities in countries like India, South Africa, Kenya, Indonesia etc. I was pleased to see the overwhelming response and enthusiasm. Some Key points that were discussed were why emerging markets? What is the role of mhealth in India, Africa etc.? Who will pay? Why will they adopt mhealth systems? Pretti Lounamaa and Seppo Luede suggested some very initial points to approach these methodologies. First, Size the market, when we are talking about market we are not only talking about the addressable market but also the number of stakeholders and customers who are willing as well as able to purchase or are interested to deploy. This was...

The other day I heard somebody saying that the Wellness industry in India is growing by 35%, However this Industry has no set parametres or Guidlines, It is still unaffected by recession etc. But to me it seems its like playing darts in the dark, you might get it and you can very well miss it. Looking at the fair extension of wellness also, If you see, Alternative Therapies have been practised in India for quite long, its just today that it is considered to be a part of wellness. Vikas and I was discussing yesterday and He shared some good facts. There are clear customer preferences in each region with regard to each segment - alternate therapies are the most popular choice of people in southern India, while customers in north are inclined towards beauty. The maximum number of fitness and slimming centres are in the west etc. But why is Wellness a hot topic today? I guess, the the increased level of activity is arising from the entry of several providers such as organised Indian and i...

The goal of this Blog of mine is to gather an inter-disciplinary group to explore this hypothesis: that mobile-computing technology can enhance the health and well-being of Indians. For these Solutions and Services, I wish to define it under three sessions for e.g. Daily medical suppport- How is it possible? Wireless Healthcare- Major Challenges in Emerging markets "Prevention"- Subscription based Awareness in underserved countries etc. I would like to invite people working and involved in these areas to comment and bounce business ideas. In Indian Context, I would like to brainstorm about: Services which meet the needs of healthcare trends in ageing, chronically ill markets Public health sector innovation WCDMA for mobile healthcare Wimax for healthcare Which technical platforms should be invested in now to ensure mobile healthcare services are effective and relevant in the 5-10 yr future? The participants of this forum can also upload their videos, white papers and other r...

Mobiles have revolutionarised Healthcare, a big way, They are further going to make a mark in developing countries like India because of its reasonable penetration, Good subscriber base and ease to use. The availability of low-cost mobile phones and the already broad coverage of GSM networks in India is a huge opportunity to provide services that would trigger development and improve people’s lives. Today's Newspaper (Times of India) says- "3G Handsets to cost less thanRs. 5000 In a year"..Read more on Page 17 tuesday, September 15, 2009. Yesterday, When a friend asked me - How secure will be the consultations provided by doctors over mobiles??, Say if somebody changes or tampers the prescription before it reaches the target consumer?, If there is some error in despatch , some inaccuracy etc., So till the time HIPAA compliance or HL7 server capacity is leveraged, Mobiles based Healthcare delivery will continue be a falcy. The Good News , Dr Neelesh shared with me on Healt...

ehealth 2009 was a very successful conference this year.The attendence was very impressive and it was great to see Public sector participation there. In my session, i.e. Online and Mobile Applications in Healthcare – exploring new service channels and business models, Dr Rathan Kelkar, Director, Kerala IT Mission, Govt. of Kerala shared some of the robust Government initiatives as per Kerala's IT mission.Dr. SMS is one such Initiative. The sole idea of the project is to help people to use their mobile phones to receive information on health resources and to provide the user with a comprehensive list of medical facilities available in that locality, such as hospitals having expertise in various medical specialties (Cardiology, Opthalmology, ENT etc). To avail the facility the user has to send an SMS to a pre-designated number, the contents of the SMS should be the Pin code of the locality for which he or she wants to know about. This pilot was tried in Kozhikode District and after i...

Countries like Africa, India ,China where disease burden is high with infectious and communicable diseases and a number of lifestyle disorders adding up 1.2% annually to the ailing population, How can subscription based services using mobile phones penetration in these areas help the conditions improve? To start of with lets say we will start with pushing SMS to people who will subscribe for this at Rs. 30/month in India. What all categories should be covered? What should be the model which will define its success? How far can we evolve this service? I think of categories like providing Info about health awareness program, Diabetes, Hypertension, Pregnancy etc. What all do you think should be there? Feedback welcome!!!!!!

Pharma Companies under Focus How can Mobiles add value to the B2B order processing and Process Management? Here you will have to go by the Healthcare Value chain. Mobility value add in Order processing i.e. B2B will be helpful only if: It eases out product procurement and delivery It helps stumbling blocks to improved value chain operations For this one need to understand the strategies in three product areas i.e. pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and medical-surgical products and other such deliverables.Let's take the pharmacy market first! There is already a scope for healthcare products/Devices and Pharma products as far as process management in the value chain are concerned. Introduction of M-commerce in health care value chain is also worth pondering over. For eg. Mobiles can be useful in effectively managing a small scale industry supply chain. Similarly, managing prescription order workflow in a pharmacy network can be done using mobile phones. A wo...

Mobile based Model- The Process and the Differentiation Value Chain Healthcare Social Linkups In September 2008, Informa Telecoms & Media conducted the annual Mobile Content & Services Industry Survey. Of the 307 telecom industry professionals who participated in the survey, 71% believed that social networking & community services will have a significant impact on driving P2P uptake of mobile content. Healthcare services can therefore be benefited using social networking to doctor to doctor, doctor to patient and patient to patient social networking. Will this work? Mobile operators and service providers are increasingly integrating social networking and community features in their value added services. For example, if we look at some of the popular mobile music services such as MusicStation, Cyloop Mobile, Shazam, Bebo Mobile and Vodafone Music Reporter; they all include community features. Prima-facie looks like it will work for Healthcare based Inform...

Shift from Communicable to Chronic Disease Over the next 10 years the cost of diabetes, heart disease, and stroke will take a tremendous toll on the national incomes of developing world countries. Mobile based Healthcare can be further enhanced to address these challenges using tools currently available. For example, just as SMS alerts are useful in raising public health awareness of communicable diseases, these same types of alerts can be used to ensure patient adherence with treatment of chronic diseases such as diabetes. SMS alerts can be sent out to address chronic diseases and mental health issues in urban areas such as smoking cessation and nutrition reminders. Enhancing Mobile based Healthcare Addressing future health needs will be facilitated by the development of mobile technologies and network expansion. The key technology trends in mobile technology continue to be the same trends that have characterized technological progress for the past 40 years: miniaturization, greater s...

Improve physician segmentation and targeting With the proliferation of multiple channels there is the need to be able to gather information from multiple sources to better target physicians and maximize sales impact. Only a CRM lets you respond quickly to changing market conditions by providing analytics that are built into the sales force automation and marketing applications, to better target physicians and maximize sales impact. You can use the applications to realign your sales force quickly, validate an alignment before deploying it in production, and model several alignment strategies. Concurrently, you can maintain historical views of alignments and territories to comply with federal regulations. To help unify your sales efforts, the application supports cross-functional processes such as customer targeting, samples and territory and objectives management. The application can be used both online and offline, the sales representatives can easily create target lists to plan routes...