Securing data, choosing the appropriate technology, establishing a security culture in a hospital, consistency of data and data visualization were the main issues that grabbed the attention of panelists on the second day of the APAC Healthtech Innovation Conclave.
Interoperability was the core issue as every hospital works on different systems and in several cases hospitals tweak the Hospital Management system (HIS) as per their requirement. The panelists were in unison on working for standardization of HIS and even at the vendor level for a better roll out of HIS.
In the session on ‘Ensuring Cyber Security in Evolving Digital Healthcare World’ Aloke Baidya, Regional Pre Sales Lead – Commercial Segment, VMware India said, “If we can we get into new age applications patient considers he is being taken better care of and also wants hospitals to embrace technology for delivery of healthcare.” Kishor Gojiya, Head IT, CIMS Hospital Pvt. Ltd was of the view that choosing cost effective technology was a challenge.”
On the one hand technology would better the delivery of healthcare but every time a technological tool is introduced, it would have a cost that would have to be borne by patients. This is a catch-22 situation averred panelists but there was no way but to adopt technology as in the long run it would even out all challenges including cost.
Technology adoption has been done in Mizoram and sharing its advantages, Dr Zorinsangi, State Nodal Officer (Training), Directorate of Health Services, Government of Mizoram said that in 10 lakh population there have been 4451 cases, 13 active cases and only 11 deaths. mCovid App has been very helpful.
The last one year has witnessed a sea change among patients who now are hesitant to visit hospitals. Harmandeep Singh, VP-IT, Rainbow Childrens’ Hospital said, “There was a lot of pressure to provide medication and diagnostics at home due to the pandemic.” MV Subramanyam, Group Head IT, Medicover Hospitals opined, “”We need to go for touchless attendance. AI can give alerts if a person comes within 28 days.”
Voice recognition the new buzz word
“Technology and systems are good only as far as we use it. Enhancing predictive analysis is a major advantage. We are using speech recognition,” Huzefa T Merchant, Head IT, Saifee Hospital, Mumbai. Voice biometric and voice recognition technology could help in more ways than one in quality patient care and also reduce time said the speakers.
Dr Aloke Mullick, Group CEO, OMNI Hospitals said, “Voice biometric can help a great deal. It pulls up historical data of the patient. It is an interesting technology.” On the issue of HIS he said that respective hospitals need to make change requests to HIS companies to improve the quality of processes in hospitals.”
“Technology and systems are good only as far as we use it. Enhancing predictive analysis is a major advantage. We are using speech recognition,” said Huzefa T Merchant. “How do we get AI to do more for us? We need to incorporate how we can leverage in day to day operations,” said Nitin Patil, Director – Azure Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure, Microsoft.
