As an eager and early adopter of technology, multi super speciality hospital Medanta Medicity has innovated and creatively applied technology to its specific needs.Rajiv Sikka, CIO, Medanta Medicity inherited mobility first as a part of their five years digital roadmap drafted ensuring anytime, anywhere and secured access for functions across the board.
“Patient experience is essentially defined by trust. Engaged patients get more involved in their own health, seek more information about their needs, make informed decisions, proactively manage their health, more satisfied and experience better health outcomes,” Sikka says.
In a typical hospital, there are hundreds of touch points in the patient journey covering digital and traditional channels. To bring trust and personalized experience at each touch point, digital plays an important role in patient centric approach.
At Medanta, it starts when someone goes to the website to do a virtual 3D tour of the facility or get educated by a storytelling approach with focus on video, book an appointment, pay bills online, download diagnostics reports, consultations notes at anytime, anywhere and goes on and on till the continuum of care through telemedicine.
Operationally, these are all backed up by resources to service the patients through multiple channels like Patient Apps, WhatsApp chats, websites, dedicated call centre, etc. and all in 24×7 mode.
Robust IT infrastructure and applications
“A strong foundation in terms of technology and associated processes was in place. When we drafted the IT roadmap for ourselves, mobility-first was the integral part of it,” he adds.
A comprehensive policy for BYOD or laptop in place of desktops was also a basic derivative of that roadmap. Rajiv Sikka did not make much changes when the pandemic hit as it was just an enablement for a larger section of the staff.
Sikka explains, “To understand in what areas we are applying these technologies internally, one must understand the healthcare delivery ecosystem. It starts with a patient’s condition and early detection of ailments followed by treatment or surgery, and then comes post-operative care, etc.”
A slew of technologies, therefore, come into play, such as, telemedicine for video, phone or chat based consults; Mobile Doctor App for management of medical records; Patient App for accessing diagnosis results, prescriptions or discharge summaries; Remote ICU supervision using Big Data & IOT; and Digital payments for admission/discharge of covid-19 patients.
Early in the pandemic, Sikka realised that care-away-from-the-hospital would be the new normal. In line with the need of the hour, they implemented pragmatic solutions for remote monitoring of COVID-19 patients who were in home isolations.
“While the aforementioned solutions have been in production for the last 4-5 years, there are a few other initiatives which are in various stages of flight. The IT roadmap and associated infrastructure created in the last five years has proved significant for the hospital now,” Sikka added.
Integrated Telemedicine Solution
Moving forward, Medanta invested in an Integrated Telemedicine Solution app about four years ago. The solution is available on multiple platforms including iOS, android, desktops, tablets and mobile etc. The patient can use this application to book an appointment (4 possible modes: video, in-person, telephony or e-mail-based chat) and receive a link which takes the patient to the session for consultation. Post the session, patients receive the prescription on the same link which is also saved automatically in the Electronic Medical Record (EHR).
“Medanta, being an early adopter has started to see our investments in action, our telemedicine consults have seen 1,200% growth from the pre-COVID era and our Patient App downloads have crossed 2 lacs,” he highlights.
Future plans on enhancing digital health
Being young, Medanta leadership under CMD, Dr Naresh Trehan, has the advantage of being first movers in adapting to digital technology. All digital projects led by Rajiv Sikka caters to enhance clinical outcome, patient engagement & service excellence, operational efficiency, revenue assurance and cost optimisation. The focus area for all IT initiatives is around these objectives, but emphasis is always patient first.
“At times, legacy infra prohibits deploying resource-intensive and rich applications. Fortunately, Medanta leadership is fully cognizant of harnessing IT in delivering better healthcare. We have constantly refreshed our infrastructure well before the end of life,” Sikka says.
Sikka further adds that the surge in the cases of infections forced the patients and doctors to relook their prevailing practices like ECG at home and instant cardiologist review from the hospital, with a clear call to action. This helped in reducing the unnecessary burden of asymptomatic patients to hospitals.
Irrespective of industry verticals and countries, COVID-19 has acted as a catalyst of change for digital transformation. Healthcare is no different. Smart phones adoption and increasing connectivity will shape the mind-set of service providers and patients alike. “We believe that digital health is going to stay and will become an essential component of caregiving during COVID-19 and beyond. As a matter of fact, the healthcare industry has barely scratched the surface. We all expect more to come from these transformational technologies and will enable doing more with less – more proactive, more productive & more value,” he concludes.
