‘Patient data safety and security is our primary focus and responsibility’

Dr Ashendu Pandey, CEO, CK Birla Hospitals speaks on the new HIS implemented at CK Birla Hospitals, in an interaction with Express Healthcare

What is this new HIS in CK Birla all about? How will it benefit the patients?

New HIS at CK Birla is about streamlining processes, increased transparency, and enhanced operational efficiency resulting in improved patient care and experience. The HIS implemented is interfaced with Laboratory Information System and lab analysers are interfaced with radiology information system and imaging modalities, e-mail gateway and sms gateway is also integrated with back office ERP which is SAP. Going forward we will integrate the system with other clinical/ non-clinical solutions to provide best possible experience to our patients. The software solution invariably helps caregivers to follow best practices and closed/improved processes, helping in minimising clinical errors and improving patient care.

How will this system will benefit the doctors?

Doctors are always concerned about providing best treatment to their patients. Best treatment depends upon many factors which include timely availability of investigation reports and medicines. The new system will make sure that Doctors have information on their patients when it is required, right from critical values to investigations which will help in taking immediate corrective treatment irrespective of their location.

What are the benefits of going paperless for a hospital?

Hospitals can derive immense benefits from going paperless as dissemination of information becomes faster as it is then available in real time helping doctors and other stake holders to take quick decisions in order to improve patient care. Other benefits which hospitals can derive is lower operational cost which could be passed on to customer as a bonus, in addition to improved services. Going paperless not only helps hospitals and its patients, it also helps vendors/ partners in bringing in efficiency and reduction in cost in providing services to the hospitals. It’s a win-win situation not only for hospitals and patients, but for vendors/ partners as well. In a nutshell all the entities which are linked in this chain may get benefitted.

We often hear that there is no medical data about many diseases or procedures. Can you elaborate how this HIS can bring a transformation in clinical procedure and disease?

Going forward, the system will capture vital information on diagnosis, treatment and outcome, which is stored for future reference and research. This information will be available to our consultants at the click of a button, helping them take clinical decisions for best and sure outcomes in treating patients with similar medical conditions. This repository will increase in size with each passing treatment and help more and more patients get best and sure treatment in future.

In the diagnostic arena, how will this system work?

Diagnostics play a vital role in treatment. Correct values of laboratory tests and their quick availability to doctors helps patients in getting the right treatment at the right time. The system is highly interfaced with other entities, be it other clinical solutions or medical equipment or other non-clinical solutions. The system captures results from the laboratory analysers without any human intervention making sure that the values captured are correct and are available immediately after these are certified. Similarly radiology studies also shall be available to the consultants immediately after acquisition of images and reported. This quick dissemination of clinical information helps consultants take the right course of treatment without waiting to be available at the patient bedside.

How will this HIS deal with emergency?

This HIS has a separate and unique workflow for emergency which can handle patients efficiently and in the quickest possible manner. It also has a separate disaster management module which is effective while handling large number of patients in case of natural or manmade calamities.

How will this HIS build up efficiency where medical condition of each person differs?

The beauty of the software lies in building up efficiency when caregivers have to deal with different patients and each of them have a different medical condition. The software keeps track ofeach patient’s in course of treatment individually and provides the information on each patient without any mix up.

Do you think this system will do away with long admission, discharge and appointment queues with doctors?

The system is helping us reduce the wait time at various touch points, whether it is taking appointments with doctors, admission or discharge. We follow the policy of one UHID for life in which patient demographics are always available in the system giving away the need for registering the patient at every encounter or episode thus reducing the wait time at admissions. Patients can be seamlessly moved from emergency to patient wards and in getting treatment in continuation with emergency. Discharge process is simplified where all the discharge activities are completed before a patient could be sent for financial discharge. System locks the beds after each discharge for housekeeping clearance, making sure that all the patient beds/ rooms are properly cleaned and sterilised without nurses following up with housekeeping after each discharge.

Is there any other hospital using this system? How is it different from the rest of the hospitals?

The solution is used in over 100 hospitals in the Middle East and at hospitals of Narayana Health in India. Most of the hospitals in India implement the only billing solution which captures services and materials from billing perspective only. Our approach is different wherein we shall be using clinician physician order entry, nurse care plans and electronic medical record. We are using high degree of integration with other clinical and non-clinical systems to exploit and drive maximum benefit out of the system. Our focus was to have clinical at the core of our implementation. We should focus on patient care, billing automatically falls in place if we follow the steps involved in patient care.

By going digital in healthcare are we not losing the traditional method of staying connected and maintaining records of a patient?

In fact, going digital is helping us stay connected and maintaining patient records in an efficient manner. The system takes care of keeping doctors and patients connected, patient records are available to clinicians without getting into manual retreival of patient files. Going forward, our home care portal will even allow patients to maintain their health records at one place and sharing these with their doctors as well. We are creating a space which shall be used by both doctors and patients.

Can this system be exposed to a threat of invasion of privacy, which is another concern since India does not have a comprehensive law in place or sufficiently updated policies to regulate personal information in the medical or health context?

Patient data safety and security is our primary focus and responsibility. We have implemented information security policies to make sure that patient data remains safe and secure and is available only to who should have access to it. Patient data in the system is only available to treating doctors and to caregivers. Sensitive/ confidential information related to patients has another level of security and remains between the doctor and their patients.

Will such a system increase the healthcare cost to the patient?

CK Birla Hospitals is committed to provide the best outcomes and experience to its patients. We have invested substantially in the implementation and will keep on investing in technology which will help in the best outcomes. In the long run, patients will get benefitted as they will get the best treatment which shall be guided by the patient history and the medical conditions they have undergone in the past.

We never pass on any of the development or enhancement cost to our patients.