Microsoft, in a bid to leverage the opportunities within the healthcare sector in India, has been developing customised solutions for various leading hospital chains. Raelene Kambli catches up with Tyler Bryson, General Manager, Marketing & Operations, Microsoft India to know more about the solutions the company has been offering to healthcare providers in India, its strategy to deal with challenges in the Indian market and the growth areas in the healthcare IT vertical
What kind of solutions do you offer in the healthcare space?
Do you design tailored cloud-based solutions for the Indian market?
Yes. We do design cloud solutions for hospitals as per their requirements. Hospitals tell us their requirement and we design solutions that suits their environment better. This helps them to increase efficiency and also reach out to their customers in an appropriate manner.
So, what kind of challenges do you face while designing solutions for hospitals that are tapping rural markets?
In the rural markets, access is a huge challenge. Getting information to the right medical practitioner at the right time is also a challenge.
Connectivity can be another big challenge in these areas. How do you resolve these problems?
In healthcare there are many white spaces. Utilising them is one way to overcome these challenges. The other way is to design solutions that are easily useable and cloud helps you do that. When you are trying to communicate information, you do not know the strength of the end device. Hence, you need to have a cloud which is smart enough to encode the information successfully at any kind of connectivity. So, you see, the intelligence of the cloud will make accessibility possible of the right device to the right person.
Tell us about the LV Prasad Eye Institute case.
LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI), in collaboration with Microsoft, is working on a model for data analytics that is set to revolutionise the healthcare sector. As per the collaboration, Microsoft and LPVEI is developing the demographic eyecare profile of the country. The institute is using Microsoft Azure and Power BI in the project. It is using Power BI for actionable insights on operational, business and clinical areas as well as machine learning for clinical excellence and support in decision making. Their ‘Doorstep to Boardroom’ initiative is aimed at integrating clinical data, all the way from the doorstep of patients to the boardrooms to gain insights and further, plan
for delivery of healthcare services. The data will be seamlessly synced along the LVPEI pyramid when the patient is referred, enabling the clinician to have access to the right information in a temporal sequence.
In your opinion, what is the scope for Internet of Things (IOT) in healthcare? How do you see it scaling up?
I think the scope for IOT in healthcare is immense. Hospitals have medical equipment and test equipment that are technologically advanced and can be connected to the Internet. The cost of capturing information from medical devices and equipment has been very high, if this cost of capturing the information, storing it and then analysing it is brought down, then we will see tremendous new scenarios.
Which other area do you see scope within the healthcare vertical?
I see huge scope for wearables in the Indian healthcare market. Not just in hospitals, but also wearables to maintain personal health.