In the Pink of Health

Surprising though this might sound, India is in many ways the Mecca of
medicine. Compared to most developing nations it offers very sophisticated and
high quality treatment. In large hospitals across the country, treatment is now
being offered at levels equal to, and sometimes better than, the best hospitals
around the world. It isn’t surprising then that the IT industry is now
beginning to look at the healthcare vertical as a major growth segment.

According to industry analysts, any hospital with a minimum capacity of 100
beds is a potential IT-buyer. With an estimated 1,000 hospitals in that category
Nasscom believes that healthcare organizations in India will spend around
Rs1,000 crore on IT in the current year. And what’s going to drive IT adoption
in this segment is the hospital management system and networking hardware
required for processes like telemedicine.

Some major corporate hospitals have already put state-of-the-art IT backbones
in place. Apollo Hospital in Chennai, for one, has commissioned a Rs35-crore
telemedicine project. Telemedicine though will be the domain of big corporate
hospitals for a while and it is the HMS market that holds out good potential.
Among other things hospital management software helps automate workflow
processes and archiving all data.

The need for IT

"The Healthcare segment in India is going through the kind of evolution
that the banking and financial services sector went through a decade ago. In
many of the hospitals they have either disparate systems running or some small
systems developed in-house. This neither gives the desired results nor can they
be integrated with newer systems. There is a great need for healthcare delivery
networks to have an integrated system which will fulfill all their
requirements", says Anand Sankaran, head—Healthcare, Wipro Infotech.

"There’s a growing need for healthcare delivery networks to have in place an integrated system which fulfils all key requirements" Anand Sankaran head (healthcare), Wipro Infotech

Needless to say a majority of the hospitals in the country are rooted in
manual processes increasingly unable to cope with the volume of data generated.
In the larger hospitals, patient records literally take up thousands of square
feet of space and still remain difficult to access. Given that, automation is
the only solution that will liberate hospitals from hassles like these. The
government hospitals are also one potential area for the IT companies. For
instance, the government still owns 66% of the Indian hospital market. With
e-governance being the foremost thought these days, companies like TCS and Wipro
are hoping that government controlled hospitals will soon find the impetus too.

Vendors in the fray

Though IT companies of all sizes compete in this space, the three major
players are Wipro, TCS and Siemens Information Systems Ltd (SISL).

Wipro for instance has been a pro-active player in the healthcare space over
the years. It addresses the healthcare industry through a division called Wipro
Healthcare. This division addresses the IT needs of Healthcare markets in India,
Asia-Pacific, Australia and Middle East and brings to the table a reasonably
complete range of IT services including domain specific solutions for healthcare
organizations. "We combine our knowledge of business domains with our
expertise across various technologies. Our end-to-end solutions cover the entire
spectrum of the healthcare industry’s needs. We have over 200 person years of
experience in executing healthcare projects and have worked with over 30 top
hospitals in India and other geographies", says Sankaran.

Wipro offers a slew of solutions including a Hospital Information System
(HIS), Picture Archival Communication System (PACS) and telemedicine solutions.
However one of its biggest achievements might be its Hospital Information
Resource Planning System (HIRePS). This is a new generation enterprise wide
software solution that covers all aspects of hospital management. The solution
is spread across 60 modules covering functionalities like administration,
clinical, support and back office among others.

“Healthcare represents a hot opportunity for Indian IT firms. Keeping this potential in mind, we plan to raise the number of healthcare domain specialists at TCS from the current level of 450 to about 900 by the end of the next calendar year” J Rajagopal, director (healthcare practice), Tata Consultancy Services

Competing head on with Wipro is TCS. The company helps hospitals to provide
managed care through its solutions. It has a two-pronged approach–specific
solutions and a healthcare portal. The company’s healthcare solutions include
the TATA HMS and Intensive Care Unit Management Systems (ICUMS) and its portal -
www.webhealthcentre.com - provides free online medical advice for anyone who
wants medical information online. According to J Rajagopal, the director of the
global life sciences and healthcare practice at TCS, "Healthcare represents
a large opportunity for IT companies. Keeping the potential in mind we plan to
increase our healthcare domain specialists from the current 450 professionals to
about 900 in the next 18 months".

Siemens Information Systems Ltd (SISL) is yet another player to reckon with.
The company’s hospital solution has been implemented at the Amrita Institute
of Medical Sciences–a 900-bed multi specialty hospital based in Cochin. This
is one of the few MNCs in India gunning for the local market. It had one of the
first hospital information systems in the country developed entirely by an
Indian team and launched in 1996. SISL now sells the solution across the world.

Advantage enterprise

Some major implementations are already underway. For instance, TCS is
currently implementing the complete suite of 22 modules of its HMS at the
Chennai-based Sankara Nethralaya, Asia’s largest ophthalmology Hospital.
Another one is Woodlands Hospitals of Kolkata, which is also going in for an HMS
from TCS. The company believes that management solutions not only provide
workflow benefits, they also help strategic growth through ushering in
management best practices.

There are still challenges ahead however. As Rajagopal puts it, "The key
challenge is sensitizing hospital managements on the benefits of an enterprise
wide IT solution". To this end TCS recently organized road shows called
"Pulse—Technology for Healthcare" in six different cities in India.
The road show attracted nearly 500 participants from across the country and the
company believes it filled a vacuum–creating a forum where medical
professionals could come and talk about trends and advances in IT in the
healthcare industry.

G Shrikanth