Health Care Information | Softwares | Technologies

Impact of Information Technology on Indian Health Care Industry

bmskc — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:05:45 +0000

The demand for healthcare services in India has grown from $ 4.8 billion in 1991 to $ 22.8 billion in 2001-02, indicating an annual growth rate of 16 %. The healthcare industry accounted for 5.2 per cent of India’s GDP in 2002, and this figure could reach $ 47 billion or 6.2—7.5 per cent of GDP by 2012.Also, the Indian middle class with its increasing purchasing power is willing to pay for improving health care facilities and the supply of healthcare services is growing steadily, as the private sector becomes more involved in owning and running hospitals.
Today, better healthcare services are the prime concern of any individual. Patient data security and efficiency in the process of healthcare is considered to be quite important. People are moving towards such healthcare institutes which offer the best healthcare services. Thus technological advancements are a must in the healthcare services offered by healthcare organizations so as to meet the increasing demands of the population. On one hand the healthcare services offered by various institutes needs to be effective in its working while on the other it needs to be cost effective due to increasing competition between the healthcare service providers.
IT can act as a major component to solve this problem. Using technology in Health care will help improving various processes like patient diagnosis, data management, e-prescription, pathology lab management, appointment scheduling, case analysis etc. In India, so far the investment done in IT by the healthcare sector has been insufficient. This may result in increased investments to be made by healthcare organizations in the near future due to rising cost, regulatory compliances and technological advancements in healthcare services.

Today, the emerging trends of IT in healthcare Industry has taken a different form. New technologies in the healthcare management systems have come up which consists of electronic data storage, data maintenance and exchange. Such process when implemented will make the healthcare management process effective. Example of such type of healthcare management system is Electronic Medical Records (EMR).
In this, Individual patient records can be stored and managed electronically, reducing the time, money and space which is wasted in maintaining patient records in the form of written document. This data can be easily transferred from one location to some other location located on the same network. Thus if the patient is unable to visit one location where he had previously taken some treatment can visit other location nearby, access his medical history and take further treatment.
e- Prescription is also one of the emerging technologies in the Healthcare industry wherein the prescriber (doctor) can send his prescription through a computer network to some medical store. Thus, the patient need not carry his prescription or draft it to some medical store. This will help in avoiding errors that can take place due to various reasons like ambiguity in the doctor’s hand writing etc.
Medical Tourism and Healthcare outsourcing also has gained momentum these days helping the patients in reducing the cost associated with healthcare services. A lot of people from foreign countries do visit India to get their treatment done. This helps in exchange of information and transfer of knowledge related to new technologies.

Problems faced by Healthcare service providers:
The healthcare service providers have to face many problems while designing and implementation of healthcare management systems. Different healthcare organizations do have different software requirements depending on their size of working, management system, infrastructure etc. This makes it difficult for the healthcare service providers to design different software programs for different healthcare organizations depending on their requirements, lowering the quality of services offered by them.
In order to avoid such problems, some standards must be set depending on which the designing can be done. These standards must satisfy the requirements of most of the healthcare organizations. Such standards are used in America. According to the American Association of healthcare service providers, the institutes are divided into various different categories, some specific standards are set for each category. Depending on these standards the service providers design their software. Such type of a system is not yet implemented in India.
The healthcare institutes are facing problems in implementing such systems because they have to make changes in their whole working system depending upon the software that they are using. Making changes in the whole working system of a major institute will take long time. Also, high expenses are incurred in installing and implementing such systems.
Such technological improvements in Indian healthcare society will attract more number of customers from other countries making an increment in the total domestic economy .This will help in resolving the problems like availability of resources and will help in overall development of the country ,making it the ultimate choice of the global market for Healthcare.

Smartphone Applications – Keeping doctors on the go!

bmskc — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 07:17:40 +0000

There are a growing number of physicians spending more time online using Smartphones; mobile phones that combine online access to information with PDA functionality, to access medical and pharmaceutical resources during the course of their busy day.

Companies like Apple, Research in Motion & Microsoft are creating & providing new applications to suggest prescriptions, identify symptoms and provide diagnostic suggestions helping physicians make more informed decisions.

Avoiding medication errors

The iPhone currently has more than 1,000 medical apps aimed at both patients and physicians to better manage health and care. There are applications in the form of a mobile checklist designed to provide a series of checklists to be completed before beginning a surgical procedure, increasing survival rates during surgery.

The application allows looking up drug interactions, side effect profiles & adverse reactions. It really helps them prescribe the right medication and avoid adverse drug events.

For a doctor, the more information he can access at the patient’s bedside, the better he can care for them. The data on handwritten index cards leaves plenty of room for error but digitizing gives an easily accessible central database of patient information on the handhelds.

Keeping Updated

When a drug is recalled, the pharmaceutical company can update their drug database immediately so that physicians can have access to the latest information.

Using e-prescription application in iPhone, doctors can submit their prescription electronically through the Smartphone, & can see an electronic record of the patient’s medication history & review laboratory and blood test results. The doctor can trace the past medical record & prescriptions of the patients in case they miss out to inform about something like the name of medicines taken or allergies.

The fire department & ambulance crew can use mobile applications to send vital signs & data to doctors waiting at the hospital so that they can be better prepared. These applications also help to eliminate billing errors, have a professional communication with colleagues, appointment reminders among other features.

Future

Technology is growing fast & Smartphones will soon become more integrated into the process of delivering care. A doctor is moving around, they’re going between the hospital, the office, and their home. The mobile device fits into the physician’s workflow. While personal visits will never go away, these could help reduce expenses of patients by eliminating redundant office visits.

Mobile applications could be used to provide access to care in under-served, rural areas in remote parts of the world as even in the most remote parts of the world, they may not have hospitals or clinics, but they have cell phone coverage.

With current price structures, mobile apps are more cost effective than a full Electronic Medical Record (EMR). Physicians are waiting for more interactive applications that increase their productivity.

In future, the mDevice will become the main tool a doctor uses in attending to patients. M-Health is about restructuring healthcare by changing communication patterns, workflow, behavior, and reimbursement systems and future of m-health looks quite good.

RFID- Increasing Patient care & Reducing Healthcare Costs

bmskc — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:37:50 +0000

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is one killer technology that has the potential to introduce dramatic new efficiencies in patient care and provide solutions to a wide range of business needs.

RFID chips are tiny radio-frequency transmitters that broadcast data to local or satellite based receivers. Each chip has a unique tag so that its location and other data can be captured. It also includes middleware to capture and process the signals and applications that use the information for business support.

Bedside Benefits

In a hospital management system with RFID for patients, the software would provide all patient-related information to the doctor or nurse in one shot, like on a monitor in a ward. This allows the nurse to ensure that the patient receives right dose of only the prescribed medication. Also, electronic record of nurse’s visit is created; as a result, nurses could spend more time with the patients rather than writing reports.

A hospital can issue RFID tag or wristband, each with a tiny antenna & a micro chip to every patient & have all the important information about the patient stored in it. The data can be read from the chip using an electromagnetic reader device. Thus, automating the storage, tracking, utilization & billing through RFID helps maintain accuracy of data, collect information without disturbing patients, reduce medical errors, improves efficiency & productivity, allows accurate billing, and significant inventory cost savings. Also, the information can be sent immediately via the internet to doctors or other hospitals when needed. The doctors & nurses can use PDA or laptops to access patient information within the hospital through intranet.

The RFID tag provides a Unique ID to every patient that allows to edit/update patient information in the database in future & the data is password protected & thereby secure.
The tagging in case of crash trolleys allows keep equipments & drugs in place & ready to use to deliver timely care.

Tracking People

Apart from tracking the doctors & patients, RFID tags can be used to keep track of new born in hospitals, so that they are not taken away without permission. This is beneficial in countries with high incident of abduction of the new born!

Apart from this RFID can be used to track inventory of medical resources like movable equipments, pharmaceuticals within the hospital supply chain, identifying the location of doctors, nurses on the basis of their proximity in case of potential emergencies.
Compared to barcode scanning, RFID has improved efficiency with reduced scan times. Using RFID, we can have a hands free approach to managing patients data & resources used in patient care.

SaaS: As a business model

bmskc — Sat, 09 May 2009 05:57:24 +0000

In the broadest sense of the word a SaaS application is a web-based software application empowered by a SaaS business model. That means that if we only observe the application itself, it has little difference with a regular or free web-based software application. It is the business model that counts and what makes it SaaS. But because of that business model and the way a SaaS application is used and developed, design-wise there are substantial differences from a standard web-based software application.

The software should:

Be multi-tenacity

The same program must be able to be used by different customers, from single individuals to large corporations.

Incorporate shared services

It should be able to link up to other services available online. For instance, when a SaaS company offers web statistics as a service, it should be able to access other programs that enable it to monitor the activities on the website, database and many others. The customer should be able to link services together as a whole.

Have a feedback mechanism

To increase user friendliness the software should always have a built in feedback mechanism to help customers, and also the software itself, report problems or difficulties encountered while using the program.

EHR : The tool for medical incentive

bmskc — Thu, 07 May 2009 05:51:54 +0000

If there is a “meaningful use” of EHR by the nurses and physicians then they have to prove it to get the medical incentive payments.” Meaningful use” of EHR includes
1. Security
2. Conversion of older record
3. Legal status.
Privacy is the major issue in when the record handled electronically. There is multiple access point in EHR. Multiple points are over an open network like the internet increases possible patient data interception. This class of the information is termed as Protected Health Information. The management has the responsibility to provide and that access to information only to authorized parties. Information technology practices have been established for computer networks, but it is the challenging job to get this technology in wireless network.
Conversion of older record is difficult and time consuming work in case of EHR. The digital scanning process should capture the hand written documents in legible manner. Some of the documents had been generated by different health care professional which are illegible so that conversion by EHR is difficult.
Some of the legal documents like test report, physician order should be authenticated by the creator. Digital signature which is called as electronic signature is authenticated by this device and identifies the signer with the signed document.

Tele- TBI: The power of mobile

bmskc — Tue, 05 May 2009 06:18:31 +0000

The tele-TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) is responsible for planning, developing, monitoring, implementing and collecting metric data. This service includes a project manager and several nurses.
The tele-TBI will work in military treatment facility which also supports healthcare related program within and among Army’s Regional Medical Command (RMC). The tele-TBI provides equipment and management support to Army Medical Department. The tele-health is implemented in three phases:
1. Cell phone tele-health
2. RMC tele-health
3. Clinical coordinators
The RMC tele-TBI provides necessary infrastructure, management, clinical and technical consultation and healthcare services. It consists of project manager, several nurses and tele-health technician at each of Army Regional Medical Commands (RMC).
The clinical coordination portion supports the tele-health and provides the personal support at medical activities level and assists in consultative treatment and management of individual TBI candidates.
The m-health application in defense opens a path for civilian tele-medicine opportunities. The application which is used in defense is also used by civilian. These people can help by giving their suggestions that how this tele-TBI become more relevant.

Application of iPhone

bmskc — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:00:49 +0000

There are 11 iPhone applications that put a dietician in your pocket and help to track calories and more advanced analytical tools. Here are some of the applications:
1. Lose It!: Distinguishing feature: Set daily calorie budgets and track your progress.
2. Sensei for Weight Loss : Distinguishing feature: Developed by doctors, dieticians, and psychologists.
3. CalorieCheck : Distinguishing feature: Info from the United States Department of Agriculture for 7,000+ foods.
4. Calorie Pad : Distinguishing feature: Track caloric intake from 6,000+ products and menu items from major restaurants.
5. Calorie Abacus : Distinguishing feature: Answers question, ”If I am allowed to eat 1,000 calories, what are my options?”
6. LIVESTRONG Calorie Tracker : Distinguishing feature: Most popular iPhone calorie tracking app.
7. Nutrition Menue – Calorie Counter : Distinguishing feature: Nutritional info for 79,000+ food and restaurant items.
8. Fast Food Calorie Counter : Distinguishing feature: Focuses on fast food.
9. Food Diary Calorie Counter: Distinguishing feature: Track 90 days worth of daily food intake, while calculating your BMI.
10. Calorie Track : Distinguishing feature: Includes data from the United States Department of Agriculture.
11. Calorie Minder : Distinguishing feature: Access to over 7,000 foods and 32 kinds of exercise.

Applications of M-Health

bmskc — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 05:37:11 +0000

The enhancements in medical areas like anaesthesia, surgery and hospital management have made possible the assimilation of patients and more complex processes in the Ambulatory Major Surgery (AMS) field. In order to improve the efficiency of patient post-operational control, it has been developed a m-health application called Mobile CMA, to be used in the AMS unit.
12 major applications of m-Health are
1. Patient Communications: Using mobile phones for accessing resources before a visit, including appointment reminders, setting an agenda for the visit, CCR, email reminders, text message reminders, questions for the caregiver and patient education.
2. Access to web-based resources: Typical use of mobiles in healthcare today. Using the phone to access reference resources.
3. Point of Care documentation for physicians and clinicians: Patient history, transmitting data via mobile.
4. Disease Management: Applications that help patients manage chronic conditions like diabetes, dermatology, asthma, smoking cessation, etc.
5. Point of Care Education: Teaching applications, similar to using Twitter to live tweet operations.
6. Professional Communication: Online networks like Twitter used as a place for pharmacists, colleagues, lab technicians, hospital workers and others to consult with each other.
7. Administrative Applications: Improving efficiency of workflow at the office. Mobile clinical assistants, etc.
8. Financial Apps: Applications that help consumers deal with the financials of healthcare, understanding their insurance, etc.
9. Ambulance/EMS: Connecting the EHR to emergency workers to give them a clearer picture of the patient’s history.
10. Public Health: Using mobiles to track diseases, epidemics, bioterrorism and disseminate information about outbreaks.
11. Research: Clinical research opportunities through data collection from mobiles.
12. Body Area Network applications: Wearable sensors that collect biometric data and interface with mobile phones to record and transmit.

10 major targets for m-Health

bmskc — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 04:06:54 +0000

Scripps Health’s Dr. Eric Topol outlined list of top ten conditions and diseases that are already benefiting from wireless health services.
10 major targets for wireless medicine
1. Alzheimer’s: Wireless sensor can track vital signs of the patient, their locations, activity etc.
2. Asthma: Wireless can track patient’s respiration rate and the peak flow so that patient can use the inhalers before an attack occurs.
3. Breast Cancer: Women can use an ultrasound device at home and send the scan report to the doctor.
4. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD): Wireless can monitor air quality and oximetry.
5. Depression: Wireless can monitor compliance, activity and communication.
6. Diabetes: Wireless can monitor blood, glucose and hemoglobin.
7. Heart Failure: Wireless can monitor cardiac pressure, fluids weight and blood pressure.
8. Hypertension: Wireless can monitor blood pressure and track medication compliance.
9. Obesity: Wireless scales can track weight and wireless sensors can track calories in/out and activity levels.
10. Sleep disorder: Wireless sensors can monitor each of the phases of sleep for quality of rest, detect apnea and track vital signs.

Challenges and security in BAN

bmskc — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 05:44:01 +0000

The information collected by all wireless sensors in Body Area Network (BAN) is not required same level of security. The IEEE 802.15.6 working group has worked towards developing a Body Area Network. The group has defined BANs as having a range of about three meters, support for data rates ranging from 10 Kbps to 10 Mbps, and low enough power consumption. To lower the energy consumption in BAN multi hop is used instead of single hop. Single hop is nothing but the direct communication to the central device. Multi hop routing is more energy efficient than the single hop.
The major challenges of WBAN (Wireless Body Area Network) are
1. The device used has limited energy resource available as there are very small. Furthermore, for most devices it is impossible to recharge or change the batteries.
2. The network consists of numerous devices in or on the body in order to minimize the heating of the surrounding tissue and the interface between the devices.
3. The devices are located in human body that can be in motion. WBAN’s should therefore be robust against frequent changes in the network topology.
4. The devices are very heterogeneous and may have very different demands or may required different resource of network.
The current projects on BAN focus mainly on radio interfaces and sensor and use a star network where the sensor have direct wireless connection to the central device.
Sports group in fitness industry as well as doctors group, the demand for privacy in health related BAN is always there. If someone hack and listen to the information then that is one thing but if someone hack in and change the information then that is called spoofing. And spoofing can kill.