New Healthcare Mobility Solutions for Better Patient Care in India: Q&A

New advances in health and medicine prompt exciting new medical technologies designed to deliver effective patient care in terms of reduced cost, speed and efficiency. Medindia heard Mr. Somenath Nag, Director - ISV and Enterprise Solutions, Alten Calsoft Labs share his insight on Healthcare mobility solutions, especially in India. Q. What new dimension is your company offering in the field of healthcare?

A. Calsoft Labs is a pioneer in delivering patient centric, integrated and security compliant health IT solutions and enables healthcare organizations to realize efficient, effective and secure patient centric healthcare informatics solutions.

‘Connected Healthcare Framework’, based on modern day technologies like Cloud, Mobility, and Big Data, enables healthcare enterprises and technology vendors in building a competitive advantage through future proof Health IT and Digital Health systems.

Q. How effectively can you take this to the end user? Or how does the patient benefit from all this?

A. Following are few areas where mHealth, as a component of overall connected healthcare, can bring benefits to overall healthcare ecosystems:

• Home care: mHealth technologies and solutions are also helping to provide home care solutions for elderly and individuals to live independently which is a challenge with traditional care providing scenario.

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• Remote patient monitoring: mHealth solutions can improve the access to care access to specialized medical services, provide more effective preventive care and better monitoring of chronic conditions and improved patient outcomes through remote patient monitoring solutions.

• Chronic disease management: Connected devices & health technologies-from wireless blood pressure cuffs that automatically upload readings and text messaging programs that remind patients to take their medication, to virtual visits conducted via video that connect providers to remote patients-facilitate and personalize patient engagement.

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• Consumer Engagement: Mobile technology and social media is enabling consumer engagement by meeting consumer need for more empowerment, convenience, and control. mHealth solutions will support provider clinical and financial goals by empowering people with the actionable decision support, convenience, and control that they desire.

• Preventive care: With regard to managing healthcare, mobile technology will empower consumers to take a more proactive approach in assessing their symptoms and selecting providers, accessing healthcare systems, and connecting with care providers for ongoing care management.

To address this opportunity ALTEN Calsoft labs has come out with multiple mHealth solutions based on a Connected Healthcare Framework. Few of these solutions are listed here:

Personal Blood Sugar Monitoring Solutions (iGlucoCheck)

Calsoft Labs' iGlucoCheck application provides effective and hassle free means by which patients can monitor their blood sugar levels periodically anytime, anywhere using their android phones. The application connects to the Glucometer device using Bluetooth, reads the historical data from the device and pushes it to the cloud server.

Some of the prominent features of the application are:

• An in-built simulator that emulates the actual Glucometer device that

Connects using Bluetooth

Reads and syncs glucometer data with the cloud server

• Intuitive graphical display of the blood-sugar values over a period of time

• Flagging of blood sugar levels as Low, Normal and High

Mobile Enabled Remote Patient Care

Cross platform (Android, iOS and Windows) based remote care delivery improves patient satisfaction by providing quality care at remote locations. The mobile application enhances productivity and efficiency of physicians with healthy practice management features. The application features are:

• Appointments viewing/management and tracking with a color legend

• Appointment notifications based on the target handset of physician

• In-built map navigation for physicians to locate the patients quickly in case of emergency

• List of To-do tasks for physicians

• Physician profile that helps in collaborating during care delivery

Nursing Medication Chart

The iOS application enables nurses to view and update the patient vitals, charts and their records from their iPhone/iPad. The application has the following features that enable the nurses to improve the efficiency, while enhancing patient care delivery. The prominent features in the application are:

• Patients list with visited and yet to visit patients tagged

• View patient details and record the vitals pertaining to:

Temperature

Height and Weight

Heart Rate

Blood Sugar

Blood Pressure

• View the patient history records and history pertaining to the vitals through intuitive graphs

Q. Should people have some skill sets or technical knowledge to be able to access the kind of healthcare you facilitate?

A. Our solutions are developed based on advanced usability engineering principles. These applications are developed keeping consumer behaviors in mind. These solutions are simple, intuitive and easy to use. Any individual who is able to use a mobile phone would be able use our solutions.

Q. The digital revolution in health care is zooming ahead in developed countries. What challenges are you facing in introducing mobile healthcare in India?

A. Though the opportunity of mHealth in India is huge, there are certain challenges that mHealth solution providers need to overcome in categories such as:

• Right technology intervention: Selection of right technology will play a crucial role in the success of mHealth in India. For example, in case of personal care management or disease management and collaboration system, it is important to identify a platform that can deliver content in the language the user understands, is culturally relevant, habit building, locally relevant, trustworthy and personalized. The platform should also facilitate the user to be able to reach out to experts for further information or fulfillment.

• Low cost of ownership: Indian healthcare ecosystem is still in early stages of adoption of technology and our healthcare spends as part of the GDP is still very low compared to the developed countries. Keeping this in mind, mHealth solution providers need to come out with a model where total cost of ownership of delivering mHealth solutions are lower and does not strain existing healthcare spend. Lifestyle and wellness application may be the exceptions here. For those applications consumers will look for the benefits and value more than the cost.

• Fragmented healthcare system: Indian healthcare segment is completely fragmented and lacks an integrated approach towards care. Due to this, information is not shared across different stakeholders. This throws up a challenge in adopting mHealth solutions as success of mHealth solutions beyond lifestyle and wellness solutions depends on a connected healthcare infrastructure.

Q. Any specific compliance or regulatory requirements set by the government of India in implementing such advances in healthcare?

A. India does not have any dedicated m-health laws and regulations but there are many provisions under different Indian laws that must be adhered to by providers of mHealth solutions/services. mHealth solutions need to comply with existing legal compliances for privacy, data protection, data security, cyber security, cloud computing compliances, and other relevant compliance.

Source-Medindia