Data Revolution in Healthcare and Lifesciences Industry

Was busy the last weekend preparing for the GTF conference in Delhi.You can learn more about this by clicking on the emblem on the left . Government Transformation Forum is first of its kind forum aimed at enhancing collaboration and exchange of learning practices among the industry, academia, civil society organizations and the public sector in India. Through this forum, the organizers intend to keep the stakeholders abreast of the latest trends and cutting edge technologies so that the e‐Government programs are designed keeping in view the needs of the next generation. You can expect a lot of action here... I was thinking while discussing the mobile health care concept with my peers, that if in case my Medical Insurance can't give me freedom from long waiting periods; my prescription delivered at home; Nurse and physiotherapy facility and continuous monitoring for my old parents and Real time Emergency Response in seconds, probably I will not opt for one. But in India, is it...

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...

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...

I wanted to have some more inputs about any kind of handicap be it mobility, blindness, handicapped or deafness to e-health. Some people may be surprised to find out that the blind and visually impaired are about as likely to be on the internet as a sighted person. It can seem like a daunting task to learn to use a computer system, but the fact is, there are plenty of easy ways for the visually impaired to get online. A common method for computer access for the blind and visually impaired is a screen reader. There are many screen reader programs available; the most common is the JAWS screen reader. A screen reader takes the output from Microsoft Windows and converts it to speech. The screen reader will tell you that you are currently in the Internet Explorer browser, and it will read to you the contents of the web pages. With time, and practice, a blind or visually impaired user can become very proficient at using a computer system. Screen Readers offer a great degree of flexibility;...

Improve Process: 1. Define the problem - that is wait time and the high number of non-emergency patients 2. Develop a solution - in an emergency room situation, this can include adding beds by expanding the department or decreasing the size of current rooms; outsourcing certain testing and radiology services; and/or adding an ‘express care’ program to deal with non-emergency patients 3. Form a plan for improving the process, measuring improvements to the process, and reducing deviations from the goal - many hospitals have found that Lean Six Sigma practices are a particularly effective way of identifying and dealing with the challenges and problems inherent to health care . How Six Sigma help reduce Medical Errors: Six Sigma is a process improvement method that focuses on eliminating defects by reducing variation. It relies heavily on statistical analysis of data and strong problem-solving techniques. For more than a decade, companies such as GE, Motorola and Toshiba have used Six S...

What is a smart card and how is it used? A smart card is a card similar in size to today's plastic payment card that has a chip embedded in it. By adding a chip to the card, it becomes a smart card with the power to serve many different uses. As an access-control device, smart cards make personal and business data available only to the appropriate users. Another application provides users with the ability to make a purchase or exchange value. Smart cards provide data portability, security and convenience. Smart cards help businesses evolve and expand their products and services in a changing global marketplace. Banks, telecommunications, computer software and hardware companies, and airlines all have the opportunity to tailor their card products and services to better differentiate their offerings and brands. The combination of applications available on smart cards also may help them to develop closer relationships with their customers. What is the potential for the smart card busi...

Current Utilization General use of the Internet for health points to a great demand for health-related information. For example, almost half the Internet users in 1997 reported looking for health information or support (FIND/SVP, 1997). A survey of 2,000 Internet users estimated that more than 24.8 million people sought online health and medical content in 1998, an increase of 44% from 1997 ("Double Mastectomy," 1999). E-health web sites have enjoyed growth that has outpaced general Internet use. For example, in 1999, general use of e-health sites grew 176% to almost 11 million (Media Metrix, 2000). According to Newsweek, the Web is currently a source of health or medical information for more than 50 million Americans. Patients and their families do more actual web surfing than investors, students or people who purchase online (Watson, 2001). Data from Forrester Research (Yonish, Ranguelova, Shrier, & Broadben, 2001) indicates that women are twice as likely as men to vi...

The PDA is a very small and portable, handheld computer, which has many more functions than a calculator, and the capacity to store information much like a Personal Computer (PC). Basic functionality available on most PDAs includes an address book, schedule, calendar, note pad, and e-mail. The PDA is convenient to use in clinical and field situations for quick data management, and the information can be synchronized with a PC . By means of a wireless network, information can be exchanged anytime from anywhere to and from a PDA, and the network will provide immediate access to all kinds of necessary clinical and administrative data . Health care professionals need access to information several times a day, and the PDA has the potential to provide this. For the PDA, there are numerous documents and medical software applications available, with a wide variation in quality. A large number of medical students take advantage of the PDA for educational purposes and patient care with great sa...

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....

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...

There are two basic classes of population from the point of pharmaceuticals view. The attitude of these two classes is so divergent that the behaviour which they display towards consumption of medicine is very different.These two classes are sufferers and non-sufferers. Sufferers tend to become hypochondriac and they ensure that they comply with the medicines while non-sufferers believe that nothing is wrong with them and perhaps will go wrong to their health till they cross the border of sufferers. As demographics of India are creating a very powerful force for growth of every industry, pharma is not an exception. Healthy population as well as sick population is continuously getting updated on medical issues through Internet. Now the population who consumes medicine whether it pharma or nutraceutical consists of both sick and healthy patients. They exhibit their behaviour of exhibiting their choice in selection of medicines. Coupled with Internet education and their awareness, they fe...