SevenHills Healthcare Gets a Digital Dose

Summary:

After bearing the brunt of a failed implementation, SevenHills eHealth decided to rely on their inhouse expertise and domain knowledege to create an eHealthcare software suite. Today their industry ready and matured solution has hit the domestic market and is training its sight on global markets as well

The healthcare industry in India is pegged at US $ 36 billion. Growing at a fast clip of a15 per cent CAGR it is poised to reach the market value of US $ 280 billion by 2022. Research suggests that the industry is looking towards IT to bolster its growth prospects.  The adoption of information technology (IT) in the healthcare industry is gaining momentum according to Asia-based healthcare IT solutions provider iSOFT Health Asia.

 According to Springboard Research, IT spending in the healthcare segment in India is expected to reach $609.5 million in 2013. “New applications such as tele-medicine and e-prescriptions are driving the need for technology in this vertical as never before. IT investments in software would further increase with growing focus on integrated billing and online availability of patient records across hospitals,” states the report.

If these reports are anything to go by there is a spiraling demand for healthcare software. And the software biggies are scrambling to catch up with the market demand. But not all software solutions offered by them can meet the varied demands of the healthcare community professionals.  SevenHills Healthcare Group learnt this lesson after stumbling upon the deployment of one such software.

Business Case- It was in 2001 when SevenHills Hospital in Vizag decided to invest in IT and network infrastructure. They scouted for the best of breed solutions in the market however when they embarked on the implementation journey they hit several roadblocks. A failed implementation opened their eyes towards the inadequacies of the software. “The product developed by technologists lacked the core features that were required by the doctors and other medical staff. The product as it did not fit into their workflow Any customization required to take place on the vendor site was time cost prohibitive and time consuming,” says Suresh Kumar, Head- IT, Seven Hills eHealth

The failed implementation planted a new idea into Kumar’s mind. He realized that the software industry biggies did not have the core competence and domain knowledge to build software for the healthcare industry. He decided to remedy the situation by creating an inhouse software to meet the needs of the user group.  In 2005 the SevenHills Healthcare Group hived off SevenHills e-Health as a software arm for the group. Kumar then began the task of creating the solution.

It is built on latest web technologies and has dashboards for doctors, nurses, managers and top management that allows them to access desired data with a click. There is enough security built in to pro

The Project– He took a couple of tech savvy senior medical practitioners into confidence and requested them to form a doctor’s committee. The best way to secure user buy in  into was to involve them right from the implementation stage.

“A team of doctors lead by Dr. Hemlata Arora committee prepared a blueprint and gave key pointers to the IT team on how they wanted the new processes. Each specialized function had to have data entry and retrieval formats in a manner that suited it best. Based on this we created a virtual hospital and dummy patients were placed. Physicians were asked check these patients as they would in a normal scenario. The IT development team made notes of the processes and workflow to create the new health application, “ says Kumar.

“The team carried out demonstrations with the EHR software suite prototype and undertook individual training sessions for doctors and nurses,” he adds. After a protracted period of painstaking research into user requirements, the efforts of Kumar and his IT development team paid off. In 2007 the software was successfully deployed at the 350 -bed SevenHills Hospital in Visakhapatnam. Enthused by the positive response of the user community Kumar deployed the solution at the 1500-bed hospital that opened in Mumbai. 

The Solution- The SevenHills eHealth suite has been created keeping the medical staff in mind who may not be technology savvy or may have resistance in using technology. Developed by a team of healthcare domain experts and doctors it is very user friendly, simple and can be customized as the required of the medical practitioner( given that each doctor has their own way to collect data.)

“It is built on latest web technologies and has dashboards for doctors, nurses, managers and top management that allows them to access desired data with a click. There is enough security built in to protect the data allowing administration and reading access to the required people,” says Kumar.

When a patient visits SevenHills hospital  he is directed to a medical officer who collects all necessary information of the patient like past medical history, treatment etc. Every patient is allocated a unique health identification Card (UHID) at the time of registration. This UHID provides the complete details of the patient’s medical history as recorded in SevenHills e-Healthcare Suite at any point of time and also during their subsequent visits.

Based on the symptoms of the disease, the patients are directed to the consultant of a specific department. Once the patient goes to the consultant, the doctor has the entire history of the patient on their dashboard. “Doctors have been provided with standard templates on their dashboard. They can also create a template of their own. International Classification of Diseases are provided within the system that aid diagnosis. The software throws up the list of drugs available for a disease. If a particular drug is out of stock, it shows the alternatives available. It saves time and speeds up the process of medication,” says Kumar.

 The new EHR system is integrated with the Picture Archival and Communication System (PACS) that allows electronic images like X-rays, CT scans, MRI scans etc. available to the doctor at the click of a button. Doctors can real-time access their patients diagnostics results including films with ease of click from SevenHills e-Healthcare Suite. This can also be done in terms of graph and charts. This allows the Doctors to plan better treatment for their patients

Benefits- The software has streamlined workflow and allows the doctors and nursing staff to access patient data anywhere and at anytime resulting in prompt and better patient care. The doctors on accessing the patient data from their smart handheld can monitor the patient development, they can access the patient records as and when they like, change the medication and care by mentioning the details under the patient care section which is made available real time for the nursing staff who can then follow the doctor’s instructions.

The speech enabled SevenHills e-Healthcare Suite increases physician satisfaction and supports hands-on or hands-off clinical documentation. And also it improves accuracy and shortens turnaround time. The digitalized system also prevents errors due to handwriting or miscommunication. Today Seven Hills claims to be among the first paperless hospitals in India.

After realizing the benefits of the solution Seven Hills eHealth has decided to make this software available to the market in India and abroad. Having sold it to the Bhuwaneshwar- based 165 bed Swarna Hospital they are now trying pitch their product in the global market. Seven Hills eHealth is now trying to obtain Meaningful Use certification for this purpose.

It is built on latest web technologies and has dashboards for doctors, nurses, managers and top management that allows them to access desired data with a click. There is enough security built in to pro