How Tech Changed Healthcare

Gone are the days of those hand-scrawled notes, scribbled prescriptions, big

diagnostic charts, patient queues, and lost patient charts. Today, all this info

and critical details are no more than a keyboard click away. IT is fast bringing

an apace makeover of the healthcare industry and changing the face of

traditional doctor--patient relationship.

Healthcare, being an information intensive sector, is one of the key areas

that is benefiting from the use of information technology. The big Indian

hospitals have now realized that with IT they can not only automate their

medical processes, but also cut costs and increase the ROI. Technology has

become a constitutional part of healthcare and is addressing to many issues that

have been of concern for the industry for many decades. Picture archiving and

communication systems (PACS), Healthcare information systems (HIS), and

telemedicine are a few of the many IT applications in healthcare. IT has

bestowed enormous benefits such as creating a one-stop data warehouse for all

clinical activities, faster patient throughput and diagnosis, reduced manpower

requirement, and cases being referred overseas.

We talk all this and more with the help of 2 disparate case studies-one of an

ashram and other of a corporate hospital, where IT is working to the benefit of

both doctors and patients alike. Here's a peek into how Swami Ramdev's Patanjali

Yogpeeth treats 2 million patients a year, and a promising start-up hospital

-Artemis (paperless and filmless hospital).

Faith, Health, and IT

Dawn with yoga' seems to be a household punch line these days. All thanks to

Swami Ramdev's yog sessions on Aastha channel every morning.

With the mission of extending the basic mantra of yog to each and every

person was established Ramdev's Patanjali Yogpeeth, an ashram situated on the

holy banks of Ganga, in Haridwar. Patanjali Yogpeeth heals its patients through

yog and ayurved. Set up on about thirty five acres of land area, the ashram has

a large OPD that can house around 6000 to 10,000 patients, an IPD of 500 beds,

dental clinic vested with latest dental equipments which is the first of its

type to adopt yogic and ayurvedic methodology for treatment, team of 200

doctors, and attending to over 2500 patients daily, giving nerves to even some

of the best corporate hospitals.

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IT-a constitutional part of Patanjali

Challenges



Attending to over 2500 patients a day was not a facile task for the Yogpeeth.

Complexity of running the hospital, increasing no. of patients, keeping patient

and treatment records were posing a challenge to the hospital. The line-ups were

so long that many patients had to return untreated. On top of this with service

centers and yog teachers of Patanjali spread in every nook and corner of the

country, it was difficult to file and track their details related to work and

area under contribution.

Scientists at Dept. of Yog R&D	Sunil Singh, IT Head

Solutions



Patanjali took the help of IT to offer better services to the patients. With
Hospial Management System (HMS) and Human Resource Management System (HRMS) in

place, data is now collated at a single place. “Follow-up of patients is easy as

they just need to quote their ID and all details of patient treatment and

history would be available online. The process has made things work fast and

ensured that no patient is sent untreated. Also, we are able to track the

details of our yog teachers spread across the country,” informs Sunil Singh, IT

head of Patanjali.

The entire IT infrastructure of Patanjali is based on fibre optic cables that

connect all 7 blocks, providing 2 Mbps data transfer speed. Also, they have

placed access points at strategic locations within the main institute and their

6 sites located nearby. They have 4 IBM Servers (with Win 2003 server ), 2

backup servers, router from Cisco 3800 series, Firewall (SonicWall).

IT in Yoga



Scientists at the ashram are working to study the effects of yoga on body.

To monitor the effects on body, the doctors have some interesting tools in

place. For instance, polygraphs, the lie detectors used mainly for interrogating

people involved in crime, serves very useful tool in the hands of doctors.

“There is a 16 channel polygraph which can simultaneously record 16 variables

such as the heart rate, heart rate variability, cardiac output, the blood

pressure non-invasively, muscle strength, blink rate (especially interesting as

computer vision syndrome often results from a low blink rate), a metabolic

analyzer which evaluates oxygen consumed and lung functions, various equipments

for skill testing and evaluating performance. We also assess the nerve

conduction velocity and muscle tension,” speaks Dr. Shirley Telles, Chief

Research Consultant, Dept. of Yog R&D.

“We use computerized Windows-based programs for the tests to measure the

amount of oxygen consumed and carbon dioxide eliminated (particularly important

as the emphasis is on breathing practices-pranayama). A high-end telemetric

(wireless) physiological and neurological monitoring system in the new campus

(yoga village), which houses 500 cottages, is in the pipeline,” informs Dr.

Naveen KV, Research Consultant, Dept. of Yog R&D.

Artemis ropes in IT

Corporate hospitals are fast changing the health map of India. A new entrant

joining this bandwagon is Artemis Health Institute, promoted by Apollo Tyres. We

visited this 500-bed multi-specialty tertiary level hospital, in Gurgaon, to get

a first-hand account on how information technology is arming the hospital with

its offerings.

With a standard eHIS (Hospital Information System) in place, from IBA Health,

Artemis has a one-stop data warehouse of records and patients and treatment

histories that can be consulted by other experts. HIS has integrated almost

everything in the hospital, right from the Front Office registration to medical

consultation, tests, IP, more so even the laundry is no stranger to it. “The

time has come when patients don't need to carry investigation reports with them

when they are visiting the doctor. With technology, complete patient record is

available to the doctor online. It not only saves doctor's time but also allows

the doctor to analyze patient's medical condition more efficiently,” informs Dr

Rajesh Kumar Gupta, IT head, Artemis Health Institute.

Artemis, a paperless and filmless hospital, has all clinical activities and

hospital transactions on a few clicks of the mouse. Dr Rajesh adds “The complete

hospital workflow, right from patient registration to discharge including

consultation, prescription, investigations, doctor and nursing notes, billing,

inventory management, etc, is automated, making Artemis Health Institute,

India's first filmless and paperless hospital. Patient safety in terms of

correct medication, correct dose, allergies to various drugs, etc is taken care

of by HIS.” Artemis has added Cathlab, Endoscopy, Gamma-Camera, PET CT, and all

radiology modalities in PACS making the images available online in digital

format. Also, complete patient monitoring system is available online from any

corner of the hospital for the doctors to have a look at patient's condition

anytime.

Their IT infrastructure has 24 Servers (including 18 Blade Servers) used for

most of their applications. They use Microsoft's System Manager Server and MOM

for managing inventory and desktop operations, respectively.

An interesting device that the hospital has is the 'pneumatic shoot' that

lets them send medicines and medical samples from one department to the other

with the press of a button.

A promising start-up hospital indeed!

All details at the click of a mouse

Dr. Rajesh K. Gupta IT Head, Artemis Health Institute