Today life science researchers are trying to address problems, the answers to which require information from hundreds of genes / sequences or multiple data types, that need to be combined / analyzed together in order to draw meaningful conclusions. Without the intervention on IT, this task would not only be laborious and time-consuming but also in most cases near impossible.
IT investment in healthcare
IT today is an integral part of life science and healthcare research and industry, being used for data management and analytics. Healthcare encompasses hospitals, pharmaceutical industry, health insurance, medical value travel, remote monitoring and telemedicine.
According to Gartner, the expenditure on IT in healthcare was $85 billion in 2008 and it declined by 6.2 per cent in 2009 to approximately $80 billion. In India alone, the healthcare industry is predicted to be approximately $75 billion by 2012, 3-5 per cent of which typically, would constitute expenditure towards IT. This indicates that even in a country like India where healthcare IT is still in its early stages, the budget for healthcare IT is estimated to be $2.5 billion.
Importance of software in healthcare
Different types of software can aid healthcare, enabling it to provide better patient care, meet regulatory requirements etc. Some of the important applications that can be implemented by healthcare organizations to improve the quality of care and the speed-up processes are:
n Hospital information system (HIS) for managing the administrative, financial and clinical aspects of a hospital. The main aim of a HIS is better patient care through electronic data capture and processing. This comprises several components:
n Electronic health / medical records (EMR / EHR) for managing the medical record of a patient- It is used in hospitals and doctor’s clinics, and enables storage, retrieval and manipulation.
n Laboratory Information System for receiving, processing and storing information generated by the medical laboratory (haematology, pathology, etc). It interfaces with instruments generating the test results and the HIS.
● Radiology Information System which is a computerized database used by radiology departments to store, manipulate, and distribute patient radiological data and imagery. It interfaces with the HIS.
● Medical practice management software (PMS) deals with the day-to-day operations of a medical practice. It allows users to capture patient demographics, schedule appointments, maintain lists of insurance payers, perform billing tasks and generate reports. It is used for administrative and financial matters and it connects to the EMR for clinical data.
● Picture archiving and communication systems (PACS), which is a combination of hardware and software for storage, retrieval, management, distribution and presentation of images. Images are digitally transmitted via PACS. Most PACSs can handle images from various medical imaging instruments, such as ultrasound (US), magnetic resonance (MR), computed tomography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET), endoscopy (ENDO), mammograms (MG), digital radiography (DR), computed radiography (CR), etc.
● Signal processing from instruments such as Electrocardiogram (ECG), Electroencephalogram (EEG), etc.
● Clinical trial management system (CTMS) which is used by pharmaceutical companies to manage the large volumes of data associated with the operation of a clinical trial. It is used to maintain and manage the planning, preparation, performance, and reporting of clinical trials.
● Clinical data management which is used to manage the data generated by clinical trials, usually at the investigator site.
Importance of software in life science
In life science too, software plays an important role. It can help in managing and analysing the large volumes of data being generated by high throughput technologies such as sequencing, microarrays, etc.
● Laboratory information management system (LIMS), which is a software used in laboratories for managing experiments, samples, instruments, etc.
● Analytics software for analysing data generated in the laboratory in order to draw meaningful conclusions.
● Visualization software to visualize the analysed data and results.
● Instrumentation software to drive different instruments.
Thus it can be seen that IT and life sciences or healthcare are inseparable. IT will enable organizations to have efficiency at every stage of the operation. Software companies like Persistent Systems are playing a vital role in developing applications and tools to aid research centres, hospitals, pharma and biotech companies in managing and analysing their data.
-The author is Sr. Life Science Domain Consultant, Persistent Systems