Data Revolution in Healthcare and Lifesciences Industry

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...

Eight Common problems can be seen in every healthcare system: errors poor quality care delivery; poor experience of patients; waste; unknowing variations in policy and practice; failure to introduce high value interventions; uncritical adoption of low value interventions; failure to recognize uncertainty and ignorance. Anything catering to the settlement or solutions of the abive rated problems is a big hit, a sure shot.However while doing this there has to be standards that need to be maintained, Every enterpreneur should be cautious about the perception of the common masses towards his new Idea. Some Current efforts include: Transparency in the health system · Rebalancing the doctor-patient relationship · Consumer empowerment · Empowerment through connectivity · Mobilisation of data · Mobilisation through interoperability I am hereby discussing a few points which may help the newer ones in this fraternity to understand things better: What sells? • Online tools such as: § Directories...

Recently received a mail from one of my Friends Senthil asking more about smart cards and their implementation in Indian Health care Scenario. Here I am describing the use of smart cards with the technology that is usually deployed for the same. Components of Smart card System SMART CARDS CARD READERS CLIENT SOFTWARE SERVERS WITH HARDWARE SECURITY ADMINISTRATOR PORTAL WEBSITE PATIENT PORTAL WEBSITE CAREGIVER PORTAL WEBSITE PDA & LAPTOP SOFTWARE . VISUAL BASIC & .NET TOOLS HL7 MESSAGING SERVER What all these components do? SMART CARDS - Securely hold patient information. CARD READERS - Work with any PC and are branded with your logo. CLIENT SOFTWARE -Upgrades the web browser on the PC so it works with smart cards and card readers SERVERS WITH HARDWARE SECURITY - Host and protect private information. ADMINISTRATOR PORTAL WEBSITE - A web application that lets administrators issue and manage cards. PATIENT PORTAL WEBSITE - A web application where patients view and update their in...

The use of technology to assist in the delivery of quality patient care covers a vast area from biomechanical devices to robotics to the electronic medical record to email. Sometimes, the term "E-health" has been used very loosely to include any electronic healthcare-related activity. Points to be considered are: 1. E-health is not a surrogate for the clinician. It does provide the means to extend the reach of the provider beyond a face-to-face patient encounter, with the advantage of expanding the delivery of limited resources and expertise. For instance, using electronic images and pictures, diagnoses may be made from a remote location, either within or outside the facility. 2. E-health provides delivery of useful medical information via the Internet, kiosks or other electronic means that may facilitate patient education and provider decision-making. 3. E-health facilitates collaboration between providers and other caregivers through file sharing, email and electronic medi...

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...

The biggest reasons why hospitals in India and abroad are giving chat facilities to their visitors are: 1. Reduce operational expense 2. Enhance customer service healthcaremagic.com, healthizen.com in India have also joined the lead. Abroad also, various sites like offshoremd.com, chatmag.com, geocities.com, offshoremd.com etc are doing the same stuff. Even Health insurance plans – driven by the rapid growth of individual health coverage increasingly turn to customer service technologies that sophisticated retail businesses, ranging from consumer products to financial services, have employed successfully for years, most notably Click-to-Chat, or “Chat.” Why is Chat, a good Idea? Chat technology enables health plan members to communicate online with customer service reps through real-time text messaging, rather than over the phone. Because Chat technology allows service reps to handle more than one customer simultaneously, and provides customers with a detailed record of online text “c...

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...

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...

India's attempts to make a foray into the world of telemedicine has not made much headway, especially due to foreign data processing laws and difficulties in certification of qualifications of Indian telemedicine providers, the Planning Commission has said. Rising costs and dearth of medical personnel have created pressures for public health care providers in developed countries to explore the possibility of electronic delivery of services across the borders and they looking for opportunities to outsource diagnostic services to private health care providers. What is relevant is the emergence of opportunities for Indian service providers to supply telemedicine services to developed countries in such segments as diagnostics, dermatology, opthalmology and psychiatry, a high-level group of the Commission observed in a report. The group notes that a number of telemedicine centres are already operating in the country. In 2001, the Indian Space Research Organisation launched a pilot pro...

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 ...

Creating a successful company in any industry is a challenge, but the unique characteristics of the Internet make it particularly difficult. Still, e-health is considered by many to be the most promising hope for the information- and service-driven healthcare industry. Due to its sheer size, even a small increase in efficiency can produce billions of dollars in savings. Since the Internet has only existed in its current form for about 7 years, there is tremendous uncertainty about how to create a profitable Internet business. Popular trends wax and wane, and a company lucky enough to catch one can see tremendous, albeit temporary, success. What will support a start-up in the long term are its fundamentals. We have identified 4 fundamental factors that seem to be the most important in predicting the success or failure of an Internet company. These are: (1) a compelling value, (2) an unambiguous revenue model, (3) competitive barriers to entry, and (4) organizational structure for cost c...