All for a Healthy Lifestyle?

The concept of a one-stop family health center is not new to

the country. But the number of such clinics is very small and the quality of

services is not always consistent. One has to often run from one doctor to

another, or from one laboratory to another, for various tests. And the results

may still not be satisfactory.

The Apollo Clinic aims to provide an answer to all such

problems. Set up under the umbrella of Apollo Health and Lifestyle (AHLL), a

subsidiary of Apollo Hospitals, the Clinic is basically targeted at meeting the

day-to-day healthcare needs of a family. "The idea of Apollo Clinics was

born because we sensed there was a sizeable opportunity in the area of primary

healthcare. Preliminary research indicated that customers were demanding better

quality, consistent and standardized services," says Ratan Jalan, CEO, AHLL.

While

AHLL has ambitious plans of setting at least 250 such centers across the

country, two of them have already come up in Delhi at Janakpuri and Pitampura.

And the initial response has been extremely encouraging. Ashok Dhingra, Director

of the clinic at Pitampura, says "We are already getting at least 30-35

patients in a day. If it continues this way, we might even break even before our

six-month target." Based on an economically viable franchisee model, the

clinic will be independently managed by the owner-managers. However, Apollo has

made sure that it closely monitors all the important aspects such as quality of

doctors, infrastructure, and overall services. "After all we have our name

at stake," says Jalan, "we have to ensure consistency across all the

centers."

IT for standardization



In order to provide standardized services across the clinics, Apollo has

made extensive use of technology. AHLL not only assists the franchisee in the

sourcing and selection of equipment, but is also helping them create an

infrastructure that will be uniform across all locations. A Clinic Management

System (CMS) developed by Wipro Healthcare IT (erstwhile GE Medical Systems IT

Ltd) has been installed. This software not only integrates the various

departments at the clinic, but will also be linked to all the Apollo clinics

nationwide so that the medical records of the patients are available at any

clinic across the network.

Dhingra points out, "Maintaining medical records can be

quite cumbersome at times. Collecting reports from one place, meeting a doctor

at another place and seeking another expert’s opinion in case of serious

illness… all these things could create tremendous pressure for the patient and

his family." By automating all the records and providing all kind of

consultants at one place, the Apollo Clinic seeks to do away with these issues.

Besides offering specialist consultation services, diagnostic

facilities and specially designed preventive health check-up packages, all the

clinics offer a complete disease management program. With the effective use of

networking across the locations, the clinics will also be providing value added

services such as counseling and tele-medicine, facilities that enable patients

to seek a second opinion from select experts located elsewhere in India.

A facelift for healthcare



Plush spacious interiors, a clean slick look, and above all efficient

services to for a complete the experience… the clinic is a complete contrast

to the many of the existing ill equipped, overcrowded and unhygienic health

centers.

When the customer calls up to enquire about anything, he is

greeted with a prompt service. His personal details get recorded in the system

and his queries are easily answered by the information available on the network.

He is immediately informed about the doctor’s availability, fees, services,

expertise etc. and depending on his requirements, the appointment can be fixed.

For a patient who comes for treatment, there are automatic machines available

for tests. As soon as the results are available, the system updates his record

and the doctor is automatically intimated. The patient doesn’t need to move

from one department to another carrying and collecting papers.

All the administrative functions have been automated with the

help of the CMS, which provides a seamless integration across the departments.

In many of the other hospitals and clinics, accounting, billing, purchasing,

finance, and other administrative functions have been automated with the use of

various software applications. But in comparison, most of these systems have

been developed and expanded over many years as money and resources became

available, leading to a mixture of discrete applications that run everywhere

from the desktop to servers. Although each system meets a specific need, the

applications often are incompatible and cannot smoothly share information as a

strategic asset across departments.

Clinical management system



Every healthcare organization is a repository of knowledge, which if tapped

and utilized effectively can prove very useful. There are records pertaining to

medical expertise, patient histories, insurance eligibility, payment status,

laboratory data and physician credentials. All these need to be properly

documented and maintained. The Clinical Management System deployed at Apollo

Clinic attempts to integrate all this information into a meaningful knowledge

base.

This would primarily serve two objectives. First, it ensures

standardization of the various business processes across all the Apollo Clinics.

And secondly, it provides vital information on the various aspects of the clinic

operation thereby providing adequate control on the operations. Divided into

three parts – patient care, clinic backend and networking– CMS enables

sharing and transfer of knowledge across the organization.

Patient care includes the front-end and inquiry modules,

which act as the interface between the patient and the clinic. These basically

deal with patient registration, billing and scheduling of appointments. The

consultant’s module assists the doctor in consultation, diagnostic test

prescription, medicine prescription and making note of the patient’s episode

history, while the diagnostics & pharmacy modules handle all the processing

in the diagnostic areas of the Clinic like the lab, X-ray and ultrasound room

etc. Patient details are available on-line and facility for inputting the test

results is available.

The clinic back-end operations deal with the entire back end

processing including finance & accounts, materials management for the

clinic, payroll management, general administration and management information

reports. The networking part of CMS facilitates the interface between various

entities involved in the Apollo Clinic network. The connections would be between

clinics, clinics to the head office/ regional office of AHLL, interface between

clinics and various Apollo hospitals for referrals, interface with insurance

providers for claims processing and reimbursement and interface with various

suppliers for materials and supply management.

CMS seems a well-designed system for managing the clinic

operations, but there are a few bottlenecks. Although the employees have been

put through rigorous training, they are not yet very comfortable using it. Says

Dr Manik Gupta, "This software has more applications than are probably

required. Sometimes it gets difficult to enter all the information gathered

while talking to the patient." But looking at it positively he also agrees

that some of the applications are very useful. "With the kind of

information we have available on the network, it becomes easy for us to explain

the problem to the patients in detail."

A lifestyle issue



With such a well-equipped hi-tech clinic, Apollo is trying to redefine the

concept of healthcare in the country. A question which arises at this point is

weather the people are ready to adopt it. Dhingra of the Pitampura clinic

insists that the prices are extremely affordable and are comparable with the

fees of a normal neighborhood physician. "The idea is to attract more and

more people. We don’t intend to burn a hole into the patient’s pocket,"

he says. Apart from the cost factor, another point to be considered is weather

the patients would be willing to switch over from their family doctors as in

most cases they have a personal rapport and faith. To this, Jalan of AHLL says,

"I would like to make it clear that we would not attempt to replace the

family physician. We will be complementing their services."

According to Jalan, Apollo has studied the market and it saw

a lot of scope before it started the venture. Estimates show that healthcare is

close to a Rs 100,000-crore industry and a study done by KSA Technopak indicates

that a family in urban India spends as much as 11% of household income on

healthcare, that is, outside hospitals. "As of now, the day-to-day

healthcare (visits to the family doctor, laboratory tests etc.) is not so

organized. There are no defined standards of service neither are there any

stringent regulations. Quality parameters are not defined," points out

Jalan. "Today consumers are sensitive to both care and cure. They are also

willing to pay to get that extra reliability, reassurance, and convenience. And

Apollo clinic will offer that extra at a reasonable price."

Preventive healthcare is already a huge industry in the

developed nations such as the US and Europe. The concept is now beginning to

catch on in India too. In the corporate sector, more and more organizations are

focusing on the health of their employees and are conducting various programs,

check-ups etc. The regular urban individual is also more concerned about fitness

and a healthy lifestyle. Clinics like the Apollo could be a beginning of a whole

new culture in the healthcare sector.

Shweta Verma in New

Delhi