Data Revolution in Healthcare and Lifesciences Industry

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!!!!!!

Resource generation The growth of e-health services has given rise to the need for a new breed of healthcare professionals, healthcare administrators and healthcare technologists. This industry needs people who can understand any two of healthcare, business and technology. Historically the healthcare industry has been the last adopter of technology, the same has been the case with healthcare education. Even till today, many of the medical, dental, nursing, pharmacology and other healthcare degrees do not have courses on information technology; ecommerce is only a far cry from reality. Courses in hospital and health administration have increased in the last 5 years or so. When the e-health services industry started about 3 year ago, companies relied heavily on people already employed by hospitals and on people employed by other similar companies. The industry has grown to such a size that people from non-healthcare backgrounds are being recruited and trained. Interestingly, a lot of yo...

Recent polls show that more than two-thirds of online health consumers would prefer to obtain healthcare information from those they know and trust, namely their physicians and hospitals Services what we need and Deal with in E-health: Internet strategy and return on investment analysis Inter/Intranet site and application design, development, and hosting Health content integration Physician find and referral databases Customer relationship management systems & Human resources management systems HIPAA privacy & security system analysis and development Dynamic systems: news & events, content authoring, personalization Database integration Secure patient document imaging systems What are Meaningful Returns? Healthcare marketing To date, analysis of healthcareÕs primary focus on Internet consumer marketing leaves little to be impressed with. As healthcare organizations review their expenditures in web technology against their expectations of attracting and converting web users ...

Well, offlate I received a Huge amount of Inputs from the readers on my blog, Thanks to Didar, Ajay, Pankaj, David, Nitin and all of you. I am hereby drawing certain conclusions out of those Case studies which I received and studied. Steps required for Such Conclusions: (1) Create a framework for country studies. (2) Identify focal points – regional and national (WHO and Member State). (3) Set up an interdisciplinary and interministry expert group. (4) Select/appoint a national consultant. (5) Carry out research on the basis of the framework. (6) Monitor, review and finalize the study. (7) Identify gaps. (8) Build capacity. (9) Devise strategies. (10) Establish task group to carry forward initiative. High-quality infrastructure is one of the most important prerequisites for fostering the growth of the e-health industry. (The main determinants of the e-business environment for health are technology, connectivity, bandwidth availability, telephone charges, power supply and real estate.) ...

E-commerce has become a commonplace practice in our lives today. Many of us have purchased books from Amazon.com, bid on items on e-bay, renewed our HFMA memberships online, or purchased airline tickets at any number of discount travel Web sites, Very lately I bought an Herbal Purgative Online. Frankly we have all probably wondered what we did before the Internet came along to simplify our purchasing experiences. The online health channel continues to proliferate, despite increased scrutiny due to heightened security fears among consumers.One such example is Drugstore.com (Though in India, we have no good examples till date- Thanks to the Rules!) Match 1: In the fourth quarter ended December 28, 2003, drugstore.com achieved EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of intangible assets, noncash marketing expense and stock-based compensation) of $556,000, the first such profit in the company's history. About drugstore.com Drugstore.com (www.drugstore....

Health Issues in the Philippines Like any other third-world country, the Philippines have been struggling in some health issues and one of it is illegal drug use. A lot of Filipinos are addicted to prohibited drugs. However, the Philippine government has dealt with this issue and although there are still some recorded incidents of drug abuse, the number of drug dependents in the Philippines has gradually decreased. Other concerning health issues in the Philippines, is malnutrition. There have been studies conducted and accordingly, most of the Filipinos that suffer from malnutrition are the poor ones. The Philippine government, thru the Department of Social Welfare and Developments along with the Department of Health has provided projects to help poor Filipinos from starvation.One such big issue is Dengue fever. Health Care System in Thailand Thailand has no established primary health care system- Most of the doctors in Thailand are specialists that is why it is hard to find a reliable...

An ideal healthcare portal India’s huge population poses problems for the nation’s healthcare sector. E-health is a solution that can bring together all the major sectors such as development agencies, health industry experts, public health specialists, policy makers, academicians, technology developers and civil society practitioners to provide schemes that are useful to common people. Aims of an Indian health portal Ambulatory care One of the most profound changes seen in many countries around the world is a shift from a hospital based healthcare system to a more ambulatory system with home care, day care clinics and same day surgeries. We are now treating patients in ways that were thought impossible a few years ago. It is now possible for a patient to come to hospital in the morning, have a coronagraph and be home that same day! You can also have your intravenous antibiotics at home or have adjustment to your anticoagulation regimen on an out patient basis. Chronic diseases manageme...

In today's on-line environment, eCommerce is already changing the healthcare industry. Current business-to-consumer sites include Drugstore.com and PlanteRx , which provide sales of prescription and over-the-counter products to consumers. WebMD and drkoop.com provide information and product promotion to consumers and doctors alike. Non-contractual business-to-business healthcare web sites that provide sales of medical supplies to institutions are Neoforma and Medibuy . Chemdex and SciQuest are non-contractual in respect to the sales of lab supplies to pharmaceutical Research and Development companies. Ecommerce in Hospitals: eCommerce has been identified as a leading practice in the healthcare supply chain.The 'big things' hospitals include: Electronic requisitioning Electronic replenishment Electronic fund transfers Contract database management Implementing leading practices within the supply chain enables hospitals save on costs, allowing funds to be redirected int...

Process mapping allows you to identify productivity opportunities, best practices, and root causes of problems, create workflow consistency, and determine who owns an action item within the process and who's accountable for it." 1. Identify the critical business opportunity. "If you're going to put 10+ key people in a room all day long, which is what it will take for most mapping exercises, there better be a darn good business reason for doing so--improving your ROI, for example," says Trusten. This step should be taken by the organization's financial leaders. 2. Identify key processes with the greatest influence on that opportunity. This will be either all or some of the key areas of revenue cycle management, such as patient access or charge capture. 3. Create a project team. Trusten recommends that you start by identifying the executive sponsor for the project, often the CFO, who will establish expectations and priorities, coach the team, break do...

ASSO/PR/527 May 26, 2008 MEDICAL TOURISM FOREX EARNINGS TO GROW RS. 8000 CR. FROM 2012 : ASSOCHAM Easy access of Visa facilities often permitted by India to overseas patients coupled with best emerging medical infrastructure facilities in its large and tertiary towns, prospects of India Medical Tourism becoming a lead foreign exchange earners will grow to an extent of Rs. 8000 crore by 2012. The above findings are arrived at The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) on Prospects of Medical Tourism for Higher Forex Earning' under the supervision of its Health Committee chaired by Chairman, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Dr. B K Rao in which other lead doctors from Medicity Moolchand, AIIMS, Max etc. are involved. Releasing the ASSOCHAM estimates, its President, Mr. Venugopal N. Dhoot pointed out that currently, the earnings accrued through medical tourism annually are estimated at Rs.3500 crore. "The primary reasons as to why medical tourism would flourish i...

16may,2008 The Indian share of BPO revenues from the offshoring of revenue cycle management (RCM) services is estimated at USD 125 million for the year 2006. This report Research the total revenues from this segment to reach USD 410 million by 2011. Two of the “core” processes in revenue cycle management (RCM) services are medical coding and billing. In this report, we have discussed billing and coding within the context of RCM services. The emphasis (and estimates) for this report relate to medical coding and billing. Medical transcription, which is another “specialized” service not offered by “generic” BPOs has not been covered in this report, and revenue and manpower estimates exclude medical transcription. The RCM industry in India is still at a nascent stage. While there are certain large vendors offering end-to-end RCM services such as Perot Systems, Apollo Health Street, Zavata and Ajuba there are few others focused on offering certain specific services such as medical coding, p...

SIZE Healthcare delivery is one of the largest service-sector industries in India Estimated revenue of about US$30 billion (FY 2006) Industry growth at over 12% p.a. in the past four years Large domestic market complemented by the inflow of medical tourists Medical tourists have increased almost twenty-fold from 10,000 in 2000 to about 1,80,000–2,00,000 in 2006 STRUCTURE The industry is fragmented with a large number of independent, privately-run hospital and healthcare centres Private healthcare providers account for almost 70%-80% of the total spend Government sector and corporate employers account for the rest Private sector corporate entities like Apollo Hospitals, Wockhardt Hospitals and Fortis Healthcare have aggressive expansion plans Indian hospitals are gaining reputation globally as ‘quality’ service providers Many Indian hospitals have secured accreditation from the British Standards Institute and Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organisations NHS, UK has indi...

Our ancestors traveled to hot springs and other water bodies for their medicinal value. Rich and famous especially from developing nations have always traveled to advanced countries for the best treatment. But today, these journeys seem to have another purpose, holidaying, and are categorized as ‘medical tourism’. Another peculiarity is reversal of tourist traffic from developed nations to third world for cheaper treatment. But it is confusing how a sick person can be on a holiday and enjoy leisure like any other tourist. Ignoring this fundamental question, medical tourism is being promoted across the world.Medical tourism, an unexplored segment, is still in its infancy in India. About one and half lakh tourists visited India in 2003 for special treatment and/or advanced surgery, as compared to one million to Thailand, and they have mixed response and experience. This figure increased by about 30,000 in the following year in India. They prefer India because it is affordable as comp...

Imagine the hospital of the future where unnecessary expenses will be cut and more patient lives will be saved. Say goodbye to the inefficiencies of the old hospital and welcome the new, highly cost-effective system of asset and personnel tracking, patient care, and billing, the keystone of which will be radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. RFID envisions such a world. The applications for the healthcare industry are several, asset tracking, patient tracking, staff location, baby monitoring, blood bank distribution, etc. Here I define two such applications: Asset Tracking:Healthcare facilities invest CRORES of Rupees in upgrading and maintaining expensive equipment that aid the healthcare professional in the diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of patients. It is incumbent on these professionals to maximize the use of such machines to maintain cost controls and yet meet the ever evolving and extremely dynamic needs of the patients. When the equipment needed is not readily a...

What new business models in health care, based on the Internet, are rising to the fore? What do they do that's different? And how do they address some eternal issues of patient care: not only good health, but also quality, choice and trust? Here is the Discussion- "Reshaping Markets and Industries." For the following ,I alloted six hat thinking to my friends.. RED HAT = Emotional analysis, White Hat = Facts n figures, Black Hat = careful , Yellow hat = positive, Green Hat = creativity, Blue hat =Cool Hat, an Organising hat. Yellow says - Most health care marketing in the past was centered around physicians. The basis of competition in the near future would shift to one driven by consumer satisfaction and quality. White says - "It's really incredible when you compare [health care] to other industries, and ask what information is available to consumers that influences choice: choice of physician, choice of where to have procedures done, ability to access meaningful...

If you need profits..if you really want to make it big in the top line...Read ON... It is important to differentiate between current visitors and target audience. If your stats are able to, the important information is return visitors and where they come from. There will always be random visitors from all over the world, arriving via search engines. They add to visitor numbers and page views, but what you need are visitors that bookmark your site and use it as a resource. They are the visitors who travel through many pages each visit, who read the content, and who are in a better mood to notice relevant advertisements. Many search engine visitors will only visit for a few seconds then go somewhere else. The advantage of Google Ads is that you get paid per click-through, regardless of whether the visitor ends up buying anything. From this point of view, it doesn't really matter where they come from - if they can read English there's a 1-3% chance they'll click on an ad. It i...

Creating support groups is a good Idea. The final destination should be linked to form the body of the page people originally arrived at, and given a much better impresssion of the depth of information your site contains. I suggest that the Support Group section be merged with Conditions section. The visitor should be able to visit your home page, click on Conditions, click on Epilepsy (See Epilepsy Journals from The Lancet as well), and reach a page that links to all the info your site has on the topic. When I get to the Epilepsy page, I would like to see a menu prominently displayed in the center of the page, that links to: - Introduction - Definition - Causes - Charateristics - Diagnosis - Treatment - Tips for living with Epilepsy - Articles - Myths surrounding epilepsy - Do's and Don'ts - Epilepsy & Women - Famous people with epilepsy - VNS Therapy - Support Groups Fixing the Navigation --------------------- What needs to be done is this, for each ailment, remedy or gen...

Revenue-------Your focus should be on advertisements. Web users don't mind qualityPortals having a banner ad at the top of the page, and Google Ads havethe ability to provide ads relevant to page content. Getting doctorsor hospitals to pay for inclusion in a your directory only becomesviable when they sense they *need* to be listed. Consider how longYahoo took before they charged for inclusion as the correct model. Which is the better option, from your visitors’ point of view? 1. A complete directory, supported by ads2. A patchy directory, supported by submission fees Revenue by section------------------In general, I do not think any gain can be made from dividing yoursite into sections for revenue purposes. Although there may be theoccasional section of your site worthy of special attention, it is notcommon for large sites to complicate their advertising in this way. If an individual page receives a lot of visitors, then a staticadvertisement that ties in well with the topic of t...

The IT and dotcom revolution has given the people a chance to explore business opportunities that never existed in the past. And they have taken those opportunities with both hands. Among them have been those looking for opportunities in the healthcare market. The absolute increase in population argues automatically in favour of a growing market for health care and health care products. The increasing levels of literacy and eduction argue likewise. The dissemination of information through the internet makes health care as a dotcom proposition sound more than a remote business opportunity. The rest of course depends upon individual business acumen and the ability to convert a chance into an opportunity and an opportunity into a viable business. Among the better known health care portals now up and running in India are: healthlibrary.com apollohealth.satyamonline.com 3. goodhealthyou.com 4. webhealthcenter.com 5. mdspeak.com 6. indmedica.com 7. doctoranywhere.com 8. healthcarehouse.com ...