Lead

National Health Highway

The Apollo Hospital Group and IBM have announced a joint go-to-market initiative to build a national health data network called Health Highway to provide a diverse set of software applications for the healthcare segment. By Mohd Shariff PA

Will technology improve healthcare delivery? This has been debated endlessly without any solid conclusion being reached. The scene in India is that there are only a handful of super-specialist hospitals that have gone in for a Hospital Information Systems (HIS is also known as ERP for hospitals) automating their business operations, bringing in better patient record systems and management and customer care wherein patients need not carry all the test reports as this data is available online. That leaves about 1,500 mid-sized hospitals catering to the masses high and dry without similar HIS systems to simplify their operations, handle medical insurance and explore revenue opportunities.

Additionally patients are more informed about illnesses and treatments and they like to get a second opinion.

IBM and the Apollo Hospital Group have announced a joint go-to-market initiative to build a national health data network called Health Highway to provide a diverse set of software applications for the entire healthcare segment. Hospitals will not have to invest in IT systems and run the headache of managing the same. Instead Health Highway will be offered as a hosted solution managed and maintained by IBM and Apollo with hospitals using it on-demand via a pay per use model.

Mohammed Hussain Naseem, Vice President, Healthcare, IBM India says, “In India only a few premier hospitals have successfully implemented IT. Additionally most implementations do not last beyond a few years.”

“IBM’s technology experience coupled with Apollo’s domain expertise will enable the IBM to serve the industry in an efficient way. The patient will have access to the entire records online. A simple login to the Health Highway portal that is been provided by the concerned hospital will give you all the details regarding your health,” explains Naseem.

The concept has been developed on IBM’s IT infrastructure. Hosted applications will be offered with the objective of creating a hub of offerings for mid-sized hospitals. Naseem says, “In India we have a complex scenario as far as technology is concerned, and we have put maximum efforts to address the complex scenario.” Here IBM will offer its hardware, middleware and service infrastructure, while the Apollo Hospitals Group will offer its healthcare domain expertise.

Ashvani Srivastava, President-Strategic Initiative, Apollo Hospitals says, “In the healthcare domain Apollo is keen on adopting cutting-edge technology that has enhanced our own operations at the global level. This initiative is to offer industry and global best practices to the other players in general and mid-sized hospitals in particular, so that the industry as a whole benefits from this strategy.” According to Naseem, there will be a wide range of applications available on Health Highway that are of tremendous value to mid-sized hospitals. People of all verticals can get benefits of this technology such as physician practice, pharmacy and third-party administrators who benefit at an affordable cost as it is been given on a pay by use method. The network would be an information highway for healthcare companies, which could use it to access IT applications that would help them create, store, manage and share clinical administrative and financial information and collaborate within their category as well as outside.

According to recent research, mid-sized hospitals are spending a good amount of money on software applications that will enable them to gain a competitive advantage. There are nearly 1,500 plus mid-sized hospitals in India and 500 plus are expected to be added every year in the next five years. The market potential for IT solutions by 2012 was around $300 million. Srivastava says, “Today most hospitals have their own set of people who avail their facilities, and hospitals are keen to give them good service.” To give world-class service, the technology should be in place. Providing health data on a mobile phone would revolutionise the healthcare sector of the country.”

How it works

The applications that hosted in the Health Highway portal include revenue management, hospital ERP, learning management, health insurance claims processing and performance management, including decision support and knowledge. Here a hospital has to subscribe to the applications and patients will be provided with user IDs through which they can also login to the database and take a printout to visit another hospital for a second opinion. Additionally hospitals can also deploy any technology application that suits their requirement, which is not available in the Health Highway.

For example the revenue management application will not only automate the revenue generation processes, but also identify new revenue streams. It will also include scheduling and registration, billing, physician and customer relationship management. In the same way hospital ERP will help the hospital to manage costs by streamlining processes in area such as materials management (hospital equipments and machines), finance and accounting, and human resources. It can also act as insurance claim processing, where electronic submission of pre-authorisation requests and claims data to third-party administrators and receiving payments electronically.

Naseem says, “In the future it can be used for the learning process for both doctors and nurses. Today the study and learning process never ends. Hospitals can schedule any particular time for their staff and have an online education system where the staff will get updated with all new things in the healthcare sector.” Although this is predictable this will become one of the key driving factors for this application. He asserts that the ecology of the Indian healthcare sector needs to change, as more and more people concentrate on their health pushing hospitals to deploy this kind of technology application. In subsequent phases the Health Highway will support applications such as e-procurement, Web communications and health analytics.

About the National Health Data Network

National Health Data Network It is an information highway for healthcare companies. The companies will use this highway to access a set of world-class IT application that will allow them to create, store, manage and share clinical, administrative, and financial information access knowledge resources to enhance performance.