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News 2005 |
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The Financial Express, Sunday, August 14, 2005
Public-private partnerships bring substance to India’s telemedicine projects |
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Research shows that rural civilians, though with lower incomes, spend a higher proportion on healthcare than
their urban counterparts. A large percentage of the costs go to paying high interest rates on loans for
healthcare, while travel and lost work time account for much of the remainder. From this, we realised that
taking a healthcare facility to them is better rather than they running to metros for cures,” says K
Ramachandran, CEO, Philips India.
A late awakening? Maybe. But telemedicine is fast making inroads all over India. The initiative, started by
the government and NGOs around 2001, has since seen big-time corporate participation. And this is not
limited to corporate hospitals. Corporate houses too have shown equal enthusiasm. The reason again is both -
business as well as a means to feature themselves as responsible corporate citizens. Hospitals have managed
to cover fresh areas, and it has got fresh orders for the companies. At the same time, it has helped them
portray as a concerned corporate.
Some the bigtime players actively involved include Apollo Healthcare, which has a subsidiary dedicated to
telemedicine Apollo Telemedicine Network Foundation (ATNF), Escorts Healthcare, Narayana Hrudayalaya, Asia
Heart Foundation, Schillers Healthcare and Philips India, which has dedicated project Disha (Distance
Healthcare Access) for the purpose.
Based on the ‘hub and spoke’ model, a regional telemedicine centre acts as a spoke of a specialised hospital.
The centre makes use of information technology to transmit and transfer real time patient and medical
information (ECG, X-ray, CT and MRI) from one geographical area to another for providing clinical care at a
distance from a speciality centre. Medical help is provided to the rural populace at a small fee. A
self-sustaining model, each family of the village pays a nominal fee to run the medical centre.
Depending on the kind of model adopted, like remote monitoring, ambulatory, domiciliary or rural healthcare
delivery centre, and the cache of equipment kept, the investment may range from Rs 50,000 to even Rs 1 crore.
The latest initiatives include Manipal Hospital and Gurgaon-based Privat Hospital coming together to cover
Gurgaon and nearby areas in Haryana, and Philips, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), ATNF and
Madurai-based NGO Dhan working in tandem to offer medical service in Theni and nearby districts in Tamil
Nadu. A Philips mobile van laden with medical diagnostic equipment will visit areas covering around 5,000
civilians and form a network, linking with Apollo Specialty Hospital in Madurai. Dhan was roped in to ensure
people’s participation.
As a telemedicine project involves interaction at various levels, collaboration among the private,
government and social bodies help in bridging the gap between the people and the technology. “While working
on few projects, we realised that rural people were hesitant of visiting a telemedicine centre and
interacting with just machines. The technology, though helping, fails to give a personalised touch usually
present in medications. To develop a personalised bond, we called few of the specialised doctors at our
telemedicine centres to see the patients. The initiative helped our programme gain firm ground,” says R
Basil, CEO, Manipal Hospital and Manipal Health Systems.
ISRO makes its satellite links available to the Disha, and also some other such projects. “Our endeavours
are driven by social spirit,” says Bhaskara Narayan, director, Satellite Programmes, ISRO.
“The major contribution from the company is towards paying the specialty medical experts who spend their
time looking at the reports and prescribing medications. Managing and paying the staff on the van is also
borne by the company,” says Philips’ Ramachandran. “Through Disha, the company plans to position itself as
more than a lifestyle and technology company. We aim to establish Disha as an economically viable model in
the targeted period of 18 months,” he adds.
Like Philips, Schillers Healthcare (India) is also helping a state hospital at Chennai in creating an e-ICU.
IT company Hewlett Packard, under its iCommunity programme, too runs e-health kiosks in Kuppam district of
Andhra Pradesh in association with PES Medical College and Hospital.
The success of the telemedicine has seen many companies coming ahead as enablers. For instance, Televital,
a US-based company supplying its integrated electronic patient medical record and real-time telemedicine
software modules to e-healthcare projects, has offered to customise its software for Indian customers.
“The company is working on making flexible cost-effective softwares for various telemedicine projects. The
demand is to make more scaleable, economical and open source software for wider applications,” says NK
Singh, vice-president, business development, Televital India.
Looking at the unavailability of specialised guidance to a vast population, telemedicine offers much
promise. The spirit shown by the corporate community - to do more to achieve more - will ensure that both
businesses and patients see their needs fulfilled.
Source : Click Here!
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