Healthcare IT service is an emerging segment in healthcare delivery and IT per se is playing a major role in efficient, effective, quality, affordable and secured delivery of healthcare services for any kind of healthcare infrastructure like government, private, public sector etc.
Definitely these kinds of healthcare IT implementation require domain knowledge from hospital operations to the clinical care delivery and from system analysis to the implementation and training (change management).
Therefore, a healthcare professional with relevant experience and exposure in implementation of health IT solution/services plays a very effective and pivotal role in the implementation of these technology tools in hospital/healthcare setups. The trend in most of the healthcare set-ups is to have more focus on healthcare delivery by using latest technology tools etc. Many medical doctors and healthcare professionals are taking healthcare IT as a profession and are working for various healthcare organizations/ hospitals (IT dept), health IT firms. Numerous national and international seminars and conferences are being organised on awareness of health IT, effective use of healthIT, successful implementation of healthIT, ROI of health IT investment, standards and latest technological innovations in health IT (www.hl7.org, www.hiss.org, www.mshug.org, www.tie. telemed.org) etc. Many healthcare IT professionals/doctors are volunteering their efforts, knowledge and sharing their experiences for effective use of health IT for the benefit of society.
The role of a healthcare professional in healthcare IT starts from:
o setting objectives for IT requirement in healthcare setup
o introduce superlative practices
o streamline administrative processes
o deliver optimal patient care support
o support clinical and business objectives
o enable informed decisions
o planning stage
o to involve various clinical and non-clinical department heads/knowledge consultants as solution architects
o plan a sophistication level aligned with hospital philosophy
o plan appropriate budget for phase-wise implementation
o features /functionality
o technology
o smart cards, biometric, mobile - device integration
o choosing the right technology partner
o a solution, which has all the required capabilities
o scalability of health IT solution
o interface capabilities with all the possible medical devices by using standards like; ASTM, HL7, DICOM and Interface with mobile applications and with e-procurement, integration with business applications (HRMS, FA etc.)
o implementation
o setting realistic expectations
o bring down the implementation cycle times
o managing projects within budgets, time and quality
o training and motivating actual end users (change management)
The practice of implementation of healthcare IT solution is more or less similar at most of the healthcare institutions/organizations; apart from the healthcare IT professional the top management plays a major role in IT growth plans and policies.
Most of the health IT firms like Covansys, Cognizant, Infosys, Wipro, Medicom, Cerner, and ISoft etc. have a large team of health IT professionals that is involved as health IT consultants, system analysts, domain consultants, process consultants, HIPPA & HL7 experts, test engineers etc. Presently most of the healthIT firms are focusing on North America and Europe, as there is a very clear mandate from the federal authorities for health IT for various critical reasons. The Indian healthcare IT market is at a very nascent stage, but has massive potential in the healthcare delivery space both in the government and private sector.
Indian healthcare sector has made impressive strides in recent years. It has transformed to a US$ 18 billion industry and is surging ahead with an annual growth rate of 15% a year and expected to grow by almost 15% a year for the next 5 years. According to the World Health Report 2002, India's health expenditure is 6.1% of its GDP. Public and private health expenditure is 21.3% and 78.7% respectively health insurance is extremely marginal but has a great potential to tap the 78.7% market.
The overall Indian healthcare situation has improved in last ten year and the main reasons are:
0 there is a growing awareness about health issues within India and an increasing demand for quality care at affordable prices
o the government has made large investments in health care, as part of a five-year-plan to provide better health-care facilities and,
0 a growing middle class of 50 to 80 million Indians are demanding more sophisticated medical treatment, a demand largely answered by private institutions.
India is becoming the hub of healthcare delivery (the NHS of the UK has indicated that India is a favoured destination for surgeries), as groups like Wockhardt, Apollo, Fortis, Manipal, Max, Columbia, Reliance etc., have a chain of hospitals. These are going in for the JCI accreditation to provide world class healthcare, attract medical tourism (foreign patients Inflow to Indian hospitals have gone up by almost 13%) and to get the maximum patients from insurance. As we all know medical insurance plays a major role in healthcare delivery (the private sector has an estimated premium potential of over Rs 4,500 crore,).
Growing need of quality and affordable healthcare has justified the clear-cut demand of healthcare IT in healthcare delivery to make it more efficient, effective, secured and reliable at the point of care. Hospital groups in India are having the budget of more than 2 crore annually on healthcare IT solutions and infrastructure. Most of the hospitals groups in India have a team of healthcare IT professional that is headed by a CIO or CTO. In the near future healthcare delivery in India will be driven by health insurance. The health insurance will have to use IT platform for efficient delivery of healthcare, where various standards for health IT and healthcare delivery has to come in. The government of India under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare & Ministry of IT are already having lots of initiatives to make this critical path a success.
(The author is industry analyst - Healthcare Practice Frost & Sullivan, India. He can be contacted through sunnikrishnan@frost.com)