M Lakshmi Narayan Rao, Country Leader – HP Future Cities, CTO – Technology Services, HP India elaborates on how HP’s eHealth Care Center addresses the health needs in India
The health of a nation is judged by the health of its citizens. Great nations have been built on the framework of exemplary citizen healthcare. Healthy citizens form the core of a vibrant prosperous city that grows constantly and spurs the economy of the nation.
The challenges of providing effective healthcare to citizens is a common one across the world, particularly in developing nations and India is no exception. Inorganic growth of new cities has exacerbated the problem due to the vast influx of migrant populace that arrive looking for better opportunities and better life.
There is a need for mass rapid deployment of healthcare infrastructure that is effective, efficient and is responsive to the needs of the citizens at point of need.
This gap needs to be addressed as it falls in the ambit of basic necessities of citizens.
Skill and scale are of essence in this healthcare prerogative.
HP eHealth Care Solution
The solution called HP eHC – eHealth Center initiative is a disruptive innovation that combines the best of health and IT domains. By providing underserved populations with access to quality, affordable healthcare, the initiative plays a critical role in contributing to healthy, vibrant communities and spurring economic growth. The solution is envisaged to assist government efforts to maintain and expand local and national healthcare initiatives.
Designed and developed in India, the eHC solution reportedly combines the values of several current technologies.
- Cloud technologies for remote access and ubiquitous delivery
- Mobility for pervasive access
- Big Data for real time, purpose-built analytics
- Dashboards for real time data representation and trending analysis.
The HP eHC (E-Health Care) solution is built on a framework that leverages leading concurrent technologies to provide the best of healthcare infrastructure at affordable costs to citizens. It is simple, easy to deploy and can scale rapidly.
Key outcomes
Delivering 21st-century healthcare to underserved populations: The eHealth Center initiative is transforming public healthcare access in resource-poor locations. Designed to fit in a standard shipping container or pre-existing clinic, the eHealth Centers are fully equipped with essential medical diagnostic equipment, HP workstations, and cloud-enabled technology, and then placed in communities where people live without access to clinics, electricity, or the Internet.
Now people who may not otherwise have access to basic medical services are able to receive quality preventive care from trained nurses and healthcare workers for themselves and their families, as well as proper medical assistance for serious, life-threatening illnesses.
Leveraging the power of the cloud to transform access to quality, affordable healthcare: The eHealth Center initiative showcases the ability of HP cloud-enabled technology solutions to increase the accessibility, quality, and efficiency of healthcare provisioning around the world. The fully functional mobile facilities are quickly and cost-effectively customised with HP workstations equipped with software networking capabilities, an open and accessible web-based electronic medical records system, and essential diagnostic equipment integrated into the cloud. These cloud-enabled technologies provide the tools necessary for on-site staff to perform routine diagnostic tests, and make the results available online so that physicians hundreds of miles away can provide a remote diagnosis, reducing the need for highly skilled medics on-site.
Assisting governments with community-wide health monitoring and management: The eHealth Center initiative provides the tools and technology governments need to collect, track, and analyse big data—such as disease patterns and risk factors—to facilitate real-time disease surveillance. Governments can also use this highly secure, protected patient health information to analyse for patterns and trends, and develop healthcare policies and programs to benefit the entire community. By doing so, governments are able to bring quality healthcare to people living in resource poor locations—a critical contributor to building healthy, vibrant communities and strengthening local economies.
The initiative provides the tools and technology that government entities and communities need to proactively mitigate the threat of an epidemic with real-time disease surveillance. It also helps policy makers understand the big picture from aggregated health data so they can better shape future healthcare policies
The role of the paramedics at site is a very crucial one is ensuring a smooth, efficient and effective operation. Bearing in mind the importance of this aspect, HP has designed an online training system that ensures that paramedics are trained on technology usage skills, domain skills and soft-skills to help them do their jobs better.
Using technologies and tools such as the award winning HP VideoBook that provides video-based learning and on-line assessment, the training module forms a critical cog in running the entire eHC operations smoothly.
Mobile health workers
To enhance the reach of the eHC, HP has designed the Mobile eHC unit that provides similar care to citizens who are in far flung remote areas or are immobile. The Kit is highly portable and works in conjunction with a tablet computer and is capabkle of working off-line via Blue tooth LTE/ USB connectivity. The data thereafter is automatically uploaded to the health cloud. This ensures an integrated approach and a system that is unified and free of human errors.
Analytics and dashboard
The initiative provides the tools and technology that government entities and communities need to proactively mitigate the threat of an epidemic with real-time disease surveillance. It also helps policy makers understand the big picture from aggregated health data so they can better shape future healthcare policies.
- Analytics for healthcare policy formulation
- Early epidemic detection
- Preventive healthcare and intervention
- Disease surveillance in real time
Thus the solution from HP leverages the best of developments in the healthcare domain and IT technologies to addresses the varying health needs of Indian cities, towns and villages effectively.