Healthcare Information Technology Senate (HITS): Some Highlights
The Healthcare Information Technology Senate (HITS) was organised as a part of the Healthcare Senate 2016 in Hyderabad. The event was attended by 150+ healthcare IT professionals. The gathering saw presentations from hospital CIOs and major vendors about the contemporary topics on how IT is being adopted by major hospitals. Some of the topics include cloud computing, 3D printing, digital technologies and Information Security
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Abhishek Raval – Mumbai
The Healthcare Information Technology Senate (HITS) under the parent platform of Healthcare Senate saw the presence of 150+ healthcare IT professionals. HITS hosted talks on myriad topics from some of the marquee hospital CIOs. Sumit Puri, CIO, Max Healthcare spoke on ‘Healthcare’s Digital Future’ and the digital strategy of the hospital. He informed about the hospital’s connected healthcare programme for the elderly using technology devices. Sumit also touched upon the partnership with GOQii for preventive healthcare. Dr Mahesh Kappanayil, Senior Cardiologist, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences showed various live cases of how 3D printing helped cardiologists at Amrita to precisely identify the heart ailment, which otherwise would not come out in the conventional cardiogram. Presenting the case for the deployment of cloud in the healthcare sector, Dilip Ramadasan, CIO & CTO, Dr Agarwal’s Eye Hospital listed out the benefits from implementing cloud at the hospital. The desktop costs were reduced by 75 per cent; launching new modules in the HIS; cloud will help to manage the massive storage requirement that would come up as a part of the Mission 2020 programme, where the plan is to have 50 overseas centres and 150 in India. The panel discussion had some of the top hospital CIOs talking about their respective IT initiatives. The last session was by Ishaq Quadri, Group CIO, KIMS Healthcare Management who, presented some of the best practices in security from a hospital’s angle.
Healthcare’s digital future
Sumit Puri defined digital as “user experience and interactions powered by technology,” in which the patient should be at the centre of all the value creation coming out of the interactions. The digital architecture of Max Healthcare (MHC) is built on the characteristics of convenience, collaboration and engagement. The digital platform supports APIs, service bots, mobile/ tablet apps, kiosks and social media. MHC has partnered with GOQii for solutions related to preventive healthcare. A host of patient and clinical KPIs have been built for the patients to book appointments faster with the doctors. The physicians can also inform the patients about any potential change in the appointment. Apps have been built for enabling clinical care pathways. For example, with diabetes and oncology apps, the patients can manage the key disease solving interventions independently. MHC engages with the patients on social media and alerts are sent for medicine refills; wearable monitoring devices are provided and the queries can be posted to doctors. The hospital does remote emergency care with an ambulance tracking feature.
The medical administration has been bar coded to help nurses to medicate patients. MHC is conducting pilots for remote OPDs and in understanding how the hospital can provide technology enabled low cost care in ICUs.
– Sumit Puri, CIO, Max Healthcare
Global trends in Imaging IT
Robin Gu gave an elaborate introduction of the company. He also explained the vision for enterprise imaging, which is to have one patient record — all the disparate records of a particular customer can be consolidated with a one view; one enterprise wide imaging solution and not have separate imaging platforms. The patient’s records can be checked with a single window view on the electronic health records platform, instead of having to check different platforms for specific details. Typically, hospitals face the challenge of operating disjointed IT systems for imaging and other process workflows run for the patients. The core strength of Agfa lies in bringing them all together and work as one. The company provides one login for using any imaging solution. Robin stated that one out of two hospitals globally use solutions from Agfa. The company can also provide a common platform for Integrated Health Networks (IHN), wherein different hospitals can come together to host the patient data for better collaboration and efficiency. The governments abroad subsidise hospitals for joining such a consortia.
– Robin Gu, Asia Pacific Marketing Head, Agfa Healthcare
Wi-Fi management for healthier hospitals
When the hospitals get digitized, Internet connectivity is crucial for different user categories. There are three types of user groups at hospitals: Registered group (existing customers), non registered users (first time users) and the trusted user group (internal staff). The users can download the mobile app, register the user in the system and start scheduling appointments with the doctors and also start conducting many other functions. The users are connected with the Hospital Information System (HIS), and the 24Online Internet Access Management System (from Sterlite Technologies). Users can get registered and the information is stored in the system. For the hospitals, the access management system is beneficial for ensuring smooth and secure Internet access; adhering with legal compliance; proper monitoring and management of the users and extensive reporting of the relevant logs.
The solution also has a single console for managing the internet access for network of hospitals.
Hospitals like Kokilaben Ambani hospital, Hinduja hospital, Medanta Hospital, Global hospitals and HCG are some of the clients of Sterlite Technologies.
– Samiksh Aggarwal, Asst. VP (Sales), Data Networks, Sterlite Technologies
Tech-themes that are changing the face of healthcare
Nagendra Balasubramaniam, Account Executive, Microsoft presented on four themes to change the healthcare landscape in the country using technology. Moreover, how enhanced technology interventions can help reduce cost and move the profitability northwards. The four themes include: cloud computing, Big data and analytics, geographical freedom and IoT.
Cloud computing enables to break down the walls of healthcare and bring in data portability. The LV Prasad Eye Institute has used the big data platform from Microsoft for clinical operations, which is basically a self service business intelligence (BI) platform. BD & A can also be used for staffing and resourcing.
Nagendra also touched upon using telemedicine using the VC experience; leveraging the IoT technology model using wearables for monitoring patients and making healthcare more proactive.
In the panel discussion on ‘How emerging technologies are transforming healthcare’, TSY Aravindakshan National Manager – Health Industry Microsoft stressed on IT playing a strategic role in achieving the business goals. He gave the examples of the purposeful role of technology intervention in clinical BI, productivity related KPIs and patients engagement.
He said that the business wants to drive three specific priorities using IT: to drive productivity of the existing systems; effectively use current data and patient engagement. The other panelists include Veneeth Purushotaman, CIO, Fortis Healthcare; Sumit Singh, CIO, WockHardt Hospitals; Dr Deepak Sagaram, CIO, Global Hospitals; Niranjan Kumar, CIO, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Vishal Anand Gupta, Head IT, Suasth Healthcare.
– Nagendra Balasubramaniam, Account Executive, Microsoft
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