Columbia Asia Hospital Pvt Ltd, part of an international chain of medical centres has invested US$4 million to install CARE 21, which is an integrated hospital information system (HIS). The HIS includes electronic medical records, blood bank, laboratory management system, and tele radiology.

The multi specialty medical centre which kicked off operations in India in 2005 via the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) route, installed CARE21 which has been developed in-house. From inception of the group in Asia, the management decided to develop an in- house software tailored to its operating needs. The in-house development allowed the hospital major to have better financial benefits by way of lowering license fees, customizations costs and standardization of the group IT platforms throughout Asia.

"We are one of the few corporate hospital chains in India and globally which has a working model established. CARE21 is managed a team of internal software and outsourced software engineers based in India and Malaysia," Tufan Ghosh, CEO, Columbia Asia Hospitals told Pharmabiz in an email interaction.

The healthcare major is engaged in the delivery of modern healthcare services across India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia. It is working to become the hospital of the future with application of advanced medical technology and adopting evidence-based health care practices. It has in place CARE 21, which helps to increases efficiency in treatment without long waiting period and creates a paperless office environment.

Columbia Asia currently has six hospitals in India: one each at Palam Vihar, Gurgaon, Mysore and Patiala and two in Bangalore (Yeshwantpur and Hebbal). It will have 20 hospitals including the six currently in operation in the next three years. It is a multinational company headquartered in Kuala Lumpur and is the only health care organization which is completely FDI-funded in India.