Category Archives: HealthCare

Creating an Experience

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Creating Experience in Healthcare is focusing on building personal relationships with clients. How do we incorporate the personal connections into technology?

When you enter any showroom or inquire for a house or participate in any event, they collect your personal details and then based on the assessment of the sales person, they categorize you for what kind of potential client you are. Based on which category you fall into, the system will keep reminding the sales person for timely follow up’s with you for a potential sale.

In a similar way, incorporating the patient experience based on what category they fall into (Inpatient/ Outpatient / kind of treatment they come to the hospital etc.) can help the administration provide the experience. Over the period of time, providing experience becomes a habit.

In their book Patient Comes Second authors Paul Spiegelman and Britt Berrett highlight how Healthcare organizations are developing the habit of cultivating experience in various places across America.

In countries like India, where we have challenges for various reasons, along with building a culture of experience, technology should also help to cultivate the habit in the workforce by incorporating experience into the workflow.

What do you think?

Experience – Future of Healthcare

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There are more than 50,000 apps which track your health on a mobile phone today. There are numerous wearables which track various vital statistics of the human body. There are good number of companies which are helping address various aliments through technology.
There are pure Healthcare technology companies which are removing paper from Hospitals by building software to improve efficiencies.
One aspect organizations and startup’s should focus on is providing experience.
Experience changes everything. The one experience which makes things happen is the feeling of good and satisfaction. Healthcare is is a very important industry which today by any metric lacks in satisfaction levels. Hospitals focus too much on either financials or turn around time or efficiencies or quantity of services provided. Most of the times, the patient experience is either missed or ignored.
Experience is something what we need to focus on. Experience in care, experience in treatment and experience in the way Hospitals interact with their clients.
The feel good experience is what changes the way Health care is viewed and delivered.

Anatomy of Healthcare Startup’s

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Healthcare startup’s have raised close to $10 Billion worldwide in 2015 and the numbers are only increasing.
What is interesting is apart from the e-Commerce, finding Doctors and Networking for Doctors, today’s startup’s are addressing almost all parts of the human body re-defining the way we live.
What components of the Human Body are startup’s addressing? 
 
Brain
Autoimmune
Lungs
Liver
Blood
Heart
Gastrointestinal
Kidney
How is it each of the components are being looked at by technologists? We will go deeper into them soon.

Direct 2 Consumer

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In this era of Digital Health, Entrepreneurs and Organizations are beginning to reach the Consumer directly in building an ecosystem for their offerings. In Healthcare, mostly Business 2 Business is the prevailing approach.

For a home Diabetic testing machine, earlier Physician/Hospital used to recommend a particular product, but today, manufacturers are reaching to Consumers directly and Consumer is having all the information at their fingertips which is helping them to buy the product of their choice.

Earlier manufacturers used to focus on Business 2 Business, but today this just does not end here. If a consumer is not happy with the offering, the business collapses.

In the Indian Healthcare scenario, Direct 2 Consumer model brings in stronger following allowing for quicker feedback loops and helping organizations to better their service.

For any technology company, the key attribute of the success of their idea is Consumer base. The bigger the signup’s, the larger is the ecosystem. The larger the ecosystem, more successful is the business model. Look at startup’s like Practo who provide Doctor, Hospital, Lab etc search with ratings? Consumers are getting a sneak peak at what kind of service they can expect even before they go. Companies like this will focus on building their consumer base which will help them build an ecosystem. The ecosystem can do more than just merely providing service.

Direct 2 Consumer is just not with Technology or Home use products. It is with all businesses impacting Healthcare.

Big Data in Healthcare

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Big Data is going to change the way we live. Wearable devices, Insurance claim information, Electronic Medical Records, Apps collecting data on phone etc are all good samaritans of Big Data.

What can we do with Big Data – Analysis, Predictions, Preventive Care, Best Practices etc are few of the aspects which we can derive from the Data.

There are various sources of data and the need of the hour is tools which can comprehend the details of this data to make it meaningful and usable.

If you look at the investment trends, Healthcare Investments have grown over 176% in 2015 and majority of the investments are in Data Analytics.

We have not yet scratched the tip of the iceberg and personally I feel the next decade will be focused on making meaningful use of the big data.

Do you have a pathbreaking algorithm which we can start with?

To startup in Healthcare – Focus on Domain

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Healthcare is the hottest sector to startup in any part of the world. There is a complete paradigm shift in how Health is being delivered. It is no longer going to see a Doctor or visit a Hospital, Healthcare is beginning at home. Preventive and Proactive Care delivery is fast gaining acceptance.

Technology is indeed helping bridge large part of the ecosystem. Smartphone and apps are bringing care to our fingertips.

When you are thinking of starting up in Healthcare using technology it is very important to understand the domain.

Recently, the DCGI (Drugs Controller General of India) asked the state government’s to take action against ePharmacies which are selling drugs online. Why? There are definitely legal aspects which need to be take care. The prescription based drugs need supervision and it is not that difficult to get prescriptions. Also, the medicines need to be authenticated by a Pharmacist before they are consumed. Since duplicate drugs are prevalent in the market, Government wants to ensure there is a process which is set before medicines are sold remotely.

For building Healthcare related apps and technology, it is very important to understand the details of the law and how the workflows actually flow. There are quite a few details which need to be understood and applied to ensure the best is delivered.

Understanding Domain is just not understanding how the workflow is, but understanding how the care is delivered. There is a difference in the workflow and administering care. Workflow shows how a diagnosis is performed for the symptoms and administering care is to ensure that the ailment is cured and the client (patient) is completely recovered.

With the growing acceptance of Internet based care, I am sure India will have laws built around the same, but before that, if you are looking at starting up in Healthcare space, focus on understanding the Domain, Workflow, how tests are interrelated to the care, how medicines are administered and finally how the care is delivered. This is what will make your startup successful and accepted.

Wearable Technology – Future of Healthcare

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Wearable Technology has been in existence for over last 5 years. However, in India, it is slowly gaining acceptance. People have started using Garmin, Apple Watch, Fitbit and now GoQii (Home grown Indian startup in wearable technology space). Garmin has predominantly been in use with sports persons (Running, Golf and Cycling) and Fitbit has also come to India few years ago.

Wearable technology can help motivate people to exercise, add friends and see how they are comparing with others. Also, these devices gather a load of data for personal monitoring. These days, these devices even gather your heart rate all through the day.

If you ask me today, this data is predominantly for personal use. But, this data can be used to consistently monitor your health and also your Doctor can see a live day-to-day analysis of how you are managing your health. Also, with apps like MyFitnessPal which help you in monitoring your food and water intake, this data becomes very valuable to your Doctor who can better judge your Health.

I have been using wearable technology for over 2 years and I have all the data with me, I am waiting for startups to focus on building interfaces with these wearable tech apps so that I can understand and decimate what the information is telling me.

This technology is at nascent stage and I am quite sure in the next decade, it will become mandatory.

This is the third Part of my future of Healthcare thoughts. Read Part 1 and Part 2

3D Printing – Future of Healthcare

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This is the second post on this series of what I think will be the future of Healthcare. In the first post, I talked about Personalized Medicine.

Joint replacement, Prostrate legs etc are gaining acceptance worldwide. 3D Printing definitely brings down the cost and hence more and more people can afford them. However, this is just one piece to the puzzle. There are other components which are required for 3D printing to become more affordable and acceptable.

There are two companies which are working on pushing the need for Joint replacements. Stryker Corporation and Zimmer Biomet. They using 3D Printing along CT Bone Scans to develop personalized designs.

This is a long way to go, but organizations like these are changing the game.

Remember how Aravind Eye Care changed the game for Cataract operations by producing lens which cost $5? Aravind Eye Care played a crucial role in bringing down the costs of Cataract surgeries and making it affordable for many people.

Personalized Medicine – The future of Healthcare

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This is one common question which comes frequently in my conversations. What is the one big thing which will change the landscape of Healthcare in the next decade or so. With my experience, I personally feel it is going to be Personalized Medicine.

Recently, I met a founder who is working on this idea at a different level. Their idea is to combine various forms of medicine to personalize the treatment. For instance, if you have a backache (common in today’s world), just popping a pill might give you instance relief, but what is the long term treatment? In the long term, one should be sincere in developing a discipline to ensure this is proactively taken care. Doing Yoga and sitting in proper posture while working and sleeping are certain ways of dealing with this kind of a problem.

What I foresee is that the regular medication which you take also will be personalized based on your DNA and other vitals.

In summary, I might not be taking Vicks Action 500 for my cold and headache, but I might walk into the pharmacy, provide my vitals and other information required and I will get personalized medicine which will address the issue much better and also ensure I develop some kind of resistance to the ailment.

Why, What, How of Predictive Analysis in India 

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Enough is said about the Healthcare infrastructure in India. All what we have is problems. Doctor to Patient ratio is very less, Population to Hospital beds is less, Manpower is less. Everything is on a downward trend.

Healthcare startups are focusing on bridging various aspects in Healthcare – Delivering medicines, connecting Doctors, Virtual consultation, Telemedicine etc. However, there is one thing Startups are not focusing on – Preventive Care.

Why?

The answer is simple, for Preventive Care, we need data and in India, that is what we lack. We do not have historical data to predict the future. The other aspect which is worrysome is that, there are very few (countable on fingers) that are focusing on automating the care delivery. This can be attributed to not so strong Healthcare Management in India. 70% is private care and out of pocket expense and 30% is the Public model.

What?

I personally do not believe that Government has to do everything, but in the current context, Government has to focus on at least structuring the Healthcare laws and delivery model in the country. Startups should focus on data collection and developing algorithms for using this data to predict the future course of action.

How?

Hospitals are ready to work with Startups to provide the data. Initially, hospitals might not allow public sharing of the algorithms, but if the Quality of Care increases, more and more will be forced to adapt to the model.

What we need today is just one case study, which can use the existing data, utilize technology to design predictive analysis and then, the ball starts rolling.