How to stop cuts in Indian healthcare

The truth is out. It was always out but  http://www.satyamevjayate.in  had brought this out open in a big way.Can MCI make healthcare more ethical by bringing regulations.  The whole business model for healthcare today is based on having more people sick. This is how the industry will grow. Healthcare industry has no incentive to control cost.  Until this incentives are not changed regulations will not help.How do you bring incentives where industry really works to bring cost down.The solutions is by having compulsory medical insurance.  Once the premiums are collected  the state will not deliver the services. There will not be state run hospitals. We know these are plagued by corruption and inefficiencies. The country will be divided into zones and private parties will be invited to set up hospitals. Hospitals will be paid a flat price on per person basis.Now the hospitals will not  earn more money by having more sick people.  In fact in this system, they would want to have less sick people as their revenues are fixed based on the population.  All this still requires regulation to see that hospitals don't cut costs by compromising on procedures. But the game has been changed in this system. You don't want more sick people. You don't want more tests. Hospitals will wan people to be more healthy and they will focus on preventive measures.The model is discussed in detail at  http://sabhlokcity.com/2011/07/exploring-the-zonal-health-care-model-further/ Every one wants others to be honest. I have always argued that honesty is a function of system. A right system can make a industry more ethical. With wrong systems it is impossible to expect ethics.


www.livehospital.net

satyamevjayate on cost of drugs in India

It was great to see a program on healthcare in  http://satyamevjayate.in/ . I could not see the whole program but saw parts on which I have some observations Cost of drugs - It was good to see that the question of ethics was brought in Indian healthcare industry. It is know fact that doctors prescribe costly drugs when cheap drugs can be given.People were astonished to hear that cost of drugs with the same medicinal value vary as much as by 1000%.  The issue is with the solution prescribed - to have state open generic shops. Nothing can be more disastrous than this. We have seem umpteen times how all this money disappears in corruption. But does that mean that  people should not get cheap drugs.  Yes, indeed they should get and there is a much simpler solution which will actually work Have doctors write generic name of drugs in prescription by lawThis simple act will help to solve the problem. A doctor may complain that he trusts a particular brand. Let him write his preferred brand along with the generic name and leave it to  the individual to decide whether he wants to take a generic or a branded drug.  There could be independent rating agencies which rate the drugs on effectiveness and let that information be available on internet. This will create a genuine competition among pharma companies to lower cost.I hope people will see that state opening pharma counters will not solve the problem. If you don't believe me then this link Jan Aushadi show what is happening. 


www.livehospital.net

Website pricing confusion- free to Rs 50,000 Rs!

Doctors, hospitals, SME  in India seem to be confused by website pricing in India.  You have a Google htttp://www.indiagetonline.in or Yahoo in India which is offering free website. and then you can have a company quoting from  6,000 to Rs 50,000 for the same website. This is a source of confusion for many in healthcare.The key point a doctor should ask is what does he want to do with the website. Is it only a place holder for his contact details and services or is it going to be more interactive platform. A doctor many not have an answer for all these questions as he would be just starting.The best way a doctor should go forward is to start with one of the free websites by Google or Yahoo. He can spend some time with these sites and then decides if he wants something more.The pricing is different for various factors but making a site look beautiful is art. It takes efforts and hence it becomes more costly to make a site visually appealing. As I said doctors can experiment in phases. First have a free website and then as you get more comfortable decide what you want.It is also important that websites should be dynamic. All the free site provider  will also provide blogging features. This is killer feature which can help a doctor establish his online presence. Today there is explosion of information but getting right and relevant information is tough. If a doctor can provide the relevant information then his practice will reap benefits. The word of mouth will as is being replaced by word of internet.Also you need not wait even wait for a website to have your own blog. There are lot of free blogging online service. You can simply start creating a facebook page and start blogging. You will be surprised to see how much value people give to right information.We at livehospital.net can help you start creating your digital identity right from creating a free website to a visually beautiful website.

Please reach us at  vishal.singh@livehospital.net or rasmi.singh@livehospital.net
www.livehospital.net

A little information goes a long way

The 2 main criteria for keeping any information are - 1) the information should not be lost and 2) information should be easily available when required to act upon it. When a patient appointment is booked, is it not the responsibility of the doctor to keep the appointment information safe and easily accessible.  The doctors, very conveniently, note the appointment in their notebooks.  But what about the most important participant, the patient. He has no record of the appointment.  A lot of times, the appointment time is communicated by the doctor to his assistant, and then by the assistant to the patient.  Each point of communication is prone to human error. Then the appointment time gets registered only in the patient's memory.  With so many chances of the appointment time getting lost with the patient, the ultimate loss is to the doctor. The doctor has blocked his time and excluded other patients from that time. If the patient doesn't turn up, the doctor's time is lost, and for a doctor, 'time is money'.  Will it not be better if the doctor communicates this information to the patient more effectively.  The SMS is one such tool that is available with almost all patients today. Try out our Appointment Solutions, that notifies and reminds patients of their appointments through SMS. Never have any missed appointment again.


www.livehospital.net

What should dentist do to tackle competition ?

In one of my recent visits I saw three dentist in a posh area in Mumbai, who have their practices adjacent to each other.  I asked them how they differentiate  among themselves.The general answer is word of mouth and our quality of work. I agree that quality of work remains the most important factor but dentist in India have to use social media, websites and IT services to differentiate.There are many early adopters but others need to do the catch-up soon.


www.livehospital.net

What is better for dentist - online Marketing or offline marketing in India ?

It is encouraging to see young dentist being positive about marketing.  This is a welcome change.The next question is what is more effective. Is it better to have online marketing or use offline marketing. Offline marketing typically has been a) Word of mouthb) Dental campsc) Free checkupsWord of mouth would remain the most effective means as it speaks for dentist work.  Then should dentist really care about  online marketing ?  My take is that online marketing should be part of overall dentist marketing plan. There are various reasonsa) If  a dentist is in a location, which has huge mobile population then word of mouth is not effective. Websites and blogs will allow to know about a dentist. If a blog addresses the concerns of patients then online trust is formed.  Today people trust blogs more than newspapers. The same will hold for a good dentist.  if a dentist can discipline himself to write blog ,which makes sense to patients then he will reap rich dividends.b) Website and blogs are one time effort. For sure you have to keep writing new contents but your old contents are not lost. c) The future is indeed digital in India. With new smartphones and reach of internet widening every day it can be safely assumed that digital identity for a dentist will be the most important asset for a dentist in coming days.We at  livehospital.net  are there to help you to market your services and provide your patients a good service with the following offerings.1 .Websites2. Appointment scheduling software3.Patient dental records.Write to us at    vishal.singh@livehospital.net   to work along with you to make your practice more efficient.


www.livehospital.net

Will iPad enhance MR - Doctor interaction?

There was a discussion on linkedin on whether iPad will enhance  MR - Doctor interaction. My take is that technology can never be substitute for human skills. But what about thinking in another way.What if there is an iPad application by a pharma company which explains about the product in details. From the pharma company perspective if they can make the doctor use the pharma application, then lot of information can be pushed to the doctor without the need of MR. Lot of transactional visits can be substituted by technology.This should be the future. I will dare to make a prediction that pharma workforce will be dramatically reduced in the next decade.


www.livehospital.net

Why Doctors website page rank matters

www.livehospital.net

How to meet Doctors to sell your IT solution

There was a discussion on pluggd.in forums on  how to market your solutions to doctors. There is always a challenge in meeting doctors.This is what I responded------------------------------We (http://www.livehospital.net/ ) are in the same space Anish. These are my learning. May be they can help you. It will be difficult to attract Doctors only through web marketing. For the first 15-20 customers you would have to meet them. You would need to filter the doctors based on their specialty and  qualification . As you would have realized ,that not every doctor wants a healthcare  solution. Pick up a doctor who is young and internet savy. Pick up a area which is relatively prosperous. A smartphone using doctor has more chance of liking a healthcare solution. There will be other filtering tricks which you will understand as you meet more doctors. What we have done is that we try to meet doctors at the end of their day. In the first meeting we keep it short and only explain them the features of the product. We then ask for a separate time for a detailed demo in case there is interest. My suggestion is that meet as many doctors as you can for a month or two. You will have insight to create your own sales model. Once you have spoken to few doctors then you can try web and other mediums. This can also go in parallel, but speaking to doctor face to face is must. This will give you one the best insights for the real requirements.Once you have got few doctors then you can use their reference to get connected to other doctors. Hope this helps.


www.livehospital.net

Does Information Technology help Doctors in India to improve revenues ?

The question is does  Information Technology help Doctors in India to improve revenues. I had discussion with many doctors on this question.

The views are mixed.I have suggested to many Doctors that having your website will lead to better brand building.  And if you can blog and really write about what patients want to know, then you are building a huge trust network. The truth is that people do not trust doctors for many reasons in India. There is a huge trust deficit.  Doctors can build this trust using websites and blog.The next point  is that in smaller towns in India doctors think that their patients are not net savy. They think very few patients use Internet. This again is a very wrong assumption. If people are using internet for e-commerce, social networking then they surely are using and will use more of internet for healthcare.What stops an individual to click and ad of a local dentist appearing on Facebook or Google.

If a doctor builds his brand and earns the trust of people then his revenues are surely going to improve. To summarize  Information technology will help doctors in improving their revenues.

www.livehospital.net