Apollo Health Street February 15, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Healthcare, Technology , 104commentsThe Apollo Hospitals Group is the single largest private hospital group in Asia. HealthStreet is a healthcare service spinoff from Apollo, focusing on BPO and IT services in healthcare domain.
The BPO services is aimed at US customers. Of course, off shoring non-core health information management activities (medical transcription, coding, revenue cycle management and claims processing) is a big industry now.
The IT services are around development, implementation and QA/QC testing. They also have a Hospital Information System product called LIFELINE (only for sale in Asia). I wish they had list of current customers of LIFELINE. In-keeping with the growing premature craze of Telemedicine in India, they showcase MedIntegra, a suite of Telemedicine-related applications.
Note: As obvious from the comment avalanche below, there is some personal mud-slinging going on between some readers. It’s sad to see how anonymity will make people abuse their right to free speech. Please note that none of the comments below are approved or supported by us in any way (except the ones left by eIndia author himself).
Folks, please keep the discussion about AHSL products, not employees
Healthcare Solutions by CDAC February 15, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Healthcare, Technology , add a commentI’ve written about CDAC before. It’s primarily an R & D institution involved in the design, development and deployment of advanced Information Technology (IT) based solutions.
I was intrigued by the healthcare IT part of CDAC portfolio, which is why I’m writing a separate post about them. Seems like there are 3 overall solutions:
1. Sushrut: A Hospital Information System with an impressive list of functionalities. They advertise the following modules: Out-Patient Management, Investigations, Billing, Appointments, Operation Theatre, Blood Bank, In-Patient Management, Registration, Enquiry, Master Management, Central Sterile Services, Diet Kitchen, Bio-Medical Engineering, Central Stores, Pharmacy Management, Patient Medical Records.The software has been installed at Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute (SGPGI) Lucknow, and Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital (GTB), Delhi.
2. Mercury: An integrated Telemedicine Solution that has an EMR, device connectivity features (scanners, cameras and direct interface with medical devices), a web interface, and even DICOM and HL7 support. There is not much info online, I wish I could see it in action somewhere to review it further.
3. AyuSoft: It’s a Decision Support System for AyurVeda. It converts the classical Ayurvedic texts into interactive knowledge repositories with supporting analytical tools. I think there is a need to digitize this traditional Indian science, and this sounds like a good step in that direction.
ITIH India February 15, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Governmental, Healthcare, Technology , add a commentITIH stands for ‘IT Infrastructure for Health’. It is a recommendation report regarding the need, issues and state of Healthcare IT Infrastructure in India. ITIH was published by The Department of Information Technology (DIT) under the Ministry of Communications and IT (MOC).
The report proposes some standards for Telemedicine systems in India and addresses information needs of different stakeholders in the healthcare sector. It seems like a first step towards governmental action in the healthcare IT domain.
I’m curious as to why the immediate focus is on Telemedicine, even in these initial stages of healthcare IT discussion. Maybe the think-tanks in India see Telemedicine as the most applicable area. Or maybe it just sounds cool. But the truth is that there are so many other things with Medical Informatics that need to be seeded and reviewed at this early stage. Basic electronic medical record, master patient index, eprescribing are some of the more established (and researched) flavors of IT deployment in healthcare. Some of these are actually building blocks needed for Telemedicine concept to work.
DIT has also published another report recommending guidelines and standards for Telemedicine in India. Wonder why there is little talk about anything other than Telemedicine.
Karishma Software January 27, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Healthcare, Technology , add a commentA good friend recently joined Karishma Software, so I thought I’ll look it up.
The site looks like that of a mature software development company. Their flagship product is a sort of Hospital Management System. Also in the portfolio: an Imaging system, Decision Support System and a Telemedicine system (plus others).
The other market they focus on is that of Information Systems for Educational Instiutions. Their customer list is not much, but still somewhat impressive for an evolving product in the emerging Indian Healthcare IT market.
I hate being nitpicky- but can’t they find pictures with Indians in them? All the graphics/pictures on the site have foreigners. Though subtle, it makes them look bit less authentic (at least to me).
PrescriptionPad.in January 22, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Healthcare, Technology , add a commentPrescriptionPad is an indigenous product aimed at facilitating prescription writing. It’s core content appears to be Indian pharmacopoeia list and drug interaction information, but it has some peripheral, outpatient EMR type functionality too - report generation, and patient index, appointment scheduling, educational handouts etc.
My opinion about the software is superficial, since I haven’t used it. They have a word document and slideshowthat show some screenshots of the product functionality. It’s interesting to see an outpatient EMR built from a prescription-writing angle. As expected, they have announcement on homepage about a “Full fledged Hospital Management System” under construction.
The real issue in any pharmacy-related system is it’s knowledge-maintenance, of course (at least in the US). Maybe it is much less of a concern in Indian market. It’s interesting to see their pricing model: basic system config costs 4000Rs. (~100$). I am curious as to what the SSA (Software Support Agreement) or similar costs are.
CCPL Soft January 17, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Healthcare, Technology , add a commentHealthcare IT -I figure this is going to be a major sub-category in future at eIndia. I have personal and professional interest in that space, and it’s interesting to post about small/medium players in this nascent, upcoming market.
I found about CCPL from the IAMI (Indian Medical Informatics Association) egroup message board. It’s a software development effort by an established Othrodontist. They only have Dentistry-related products right now (although judging by the list of empty product categories, they have bigger plans in future).
I’ve not seen a screenshot/demo to be able to review the product any further. But the claimed multi-lingual support and patient-counselling animations look impressive for a startup.
I’ve been in the US Healthcare-IT domain for more than six years now, and it’s good to see Dental Informatics takign shape in India finally. If you are intrigued by Dental Informatics, wikipedia has a small but good page about it here.
Express Healthcare January 15, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Healthcare, News , add a commentExpress Healthcare is an online and print magazine about Indian healthcare business. The print edition started January 2000 and comes out every fortnight. The online version archive goes back to December 2000 and the site is pretty usable, if not slick.
The mag is owned by Indian Express Newspapers group.