30 Minute Interview

'We have Developed a Tool to Extract Meaningful Insights from Unstructured Data'

IBM has made its global footprint in healthcare since 2002. It has provided innovative solutions to companies in healthcare delivery, health insurance, pharma and life sciences across the globe. In India, it set up base in 2005, when a dedicated healthcare team was set up. In a short time frame of two years, IBM has established itself as a leader in IT solutions. It has provided networking and infrastructure solutions to most of the new, large hospitals being set up in the country. In the wake of its recent study on use the of IT in mid-size hospitals, Aparajithan Srivathsan, Head-Healthcare Business Solutions, IBM India, speaks to Rita Dutta about the study and also the Company's plans in India. Excerpts

You have recently made eTechnology Group @ IMRB, IMRB International conduct a study on the use of IT in mid-size hospitals. What was the objective behind such a study? Why did you choose to study mid-size hospital segment and not large hospitals?

The objective behind initiating eTechnology Group's study with IMRB was to understand the current usiness operations of mid-sized hospitals in India and adoption of IT among them. IBM is a leading player not only in IT but also in healthcare IT. Hence, we wanted to examine the current state of business in various hospitals and their usage of IT with a view to explore how IT could help them deliver greater quality of patient care, cost effectively.

Large hospitals, as expected, are at the forefront of IT usage. However, a large percentage of the patients receive care at mid-size hospitals, not only in the metros, but across India.

What are the key findings of the study?

The key findings of the study are—of the total PCs installed in these mid-sized hospitals, the maximum percentage was in doctors' consulting rooms. What was not expected was installation of PCs in the operating rooms and labs. We expected that most of the PCs would be in the administration, finance, or front office areas—which was, of course, validated by the study. A parallel finding is that most of these PCs are stand-alone in most instances, and networked in only one-third of the instances. Another point that emerged was that the most significant obstacles to adopting IT were the high cost involved and the difficulty in hiring technically-skilled persons. When read together, it appears that if clinical applications were to be made available in an 'easy to use, easy to pay' format, doctors are likely to start using them. This is contrary to popular perception, that doctors are technology averse, and will resist use of computers.

Was the use of IT satisfactory in these hospitals?

IT usage in these hospitals mostly consisted of applications for administration, finance and accounting, and front office. The overall PC penetration in these hospitals was around 10 per cent (as compared to around 50 per cent in the larger hospitals). And spending on IT was around 0.2 per cent of their revenues, when considered on an annual basis. At such low level of investment in IT, it is rather difficult to say that the usage of IT is satisfactory.

Some of them also used IT in functions like procurement and HR, but given their low level of investment, most of these are applications with basic functionalities.

What were the major hurdles that the hospitals face while implementing IT?

High cost/investment and lack of skilled manpower to rightly utilise the technology.

Were their IT investment plans spectacular, according to the study?

Nearly 50 per cent of the hospitals had plans to invest in IT, but we can hardly classify these as spectacular. Consider this: Only one-fourth of the total hospitals have a budget of more than Rs 10 lakh and almost 40 per cent have a budget of between Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakh.

What is the scale of IBM projects in Indian healthcare?

Almost all the large hospitals trying to upgrade their IT applications are seriously considering our solutions, and we have the innovative Health Hiway initiative to provide IT solutions to mid-size hospitals.

Which segment is IBM focusing and why?

IBM is working closely with hospital chains as well as large stand-alone hospitals. We are also deploying an interesting set of solutions that meet the requirements of mid-size hospitals. In addition to this, we are also working in areas of health insurance, and new healthcare business that seek to change the rules of how healthcare services are delivered.

What kind of solutions, services and products do you have in healthcare? For which category the demand is high in India vis-à-vis the West?

Currently, most of the focus of hospitals in India is to implement Hospital Information Systems (HIS). IBM's approach is that for effective use of technology, the first step is to transform the way healthcare is delivered. For this, we provide consulting services and have a large number of people with healthcare domain expertise, all over the globe. Then, of course, we have complete computing solutions (servers, storage), communications (networking) and applications (clinical information systems, healthcare analytics and ERP).

The healthcare industry in India is only now intensifying its investment in IT and in the next few years, the demand for IT is expected to cross $500 million.

What is so unique about IBM's healthcare products, services and solutions?

The manner in which we combine business insights with technology expertise is what makes our offerings unique. Also, these insights and expertise are based on a large number of projects we have done all over the globe. Many of these projects are defining projects. For instance, an eHealth Portal we designed and implemented for the Government of Denmark is used by six million citizens for all their healthcare needs. Such a solution could be easily customised for use by a state Government to manage the way it delivers healthcare to a large number of people.

Any new product, solutions or services that IBM would offer in the future?

We are working on several such offerings; many of them in partnership with industry leaders, and hope to keep bring out new offerings at regular intervals. However, we cannot talk about these offerings until we launch them.

What kind of research facility do you have?

IBM invests large amounts of money every year towards research. It has eight research labs across the globe, including one in New Delhi, which now has a Bangalore centre as well. These research labs are doing a lot of pioneering work that is applicable across industries. For instance, they have developed a text analytics tool, which can be used to extract meaningful insights from unstructured data (such as one will find in a patient record). Within the research lab in Delhi, we also have an Industry Solutions Lab, where all our solutions (for various industries) are displayed.

rita.dutta@expressindia.com