Technology An Integral Part Of The System At Narayana Nethralaya

Dr Rajesh Babu. B, Head, Medical Informatics and EMR, Narayana Nethralaya speaks to Biztec2.0 about the role of IT at the hospital.

How far is IT important for super-speciality hospitals like Narayana Nethralaya?

For any hospital, it is very important to take proper care of patients, whether it is a super-speciality or a general hospital. Technology plays an important role in helping doctors as well as hospitals to cure patients from various diseases. Thus, we have also taken the help of IT at Narayana Nethralaya to extend better services to our patients. For keeping records of patients’ health records, we have the Electronic Health Record (EHR), which is a longitudinal electronic record of patients’ health information, generated by one or more encounters in any care delivery setting. Included in this information are patient demographics, progress notes, problems, medications, vital signs, past medical history, immunisations, laboratory data and radiology reports.

In order to arrive at a definitive diagnosis and give optimal treatment, it is important to make informed decisions to avoid fatal errors, omissions or unnecessary procedures on patients. Eye health is vital for everyone; all systemic diseases can affect eye health, hence it is vital that we manage information efficiently to make better decisions during patient care. Additionally, we need to collect information for epidemiological purposes, planning resource allocation and strategic planning for newer research.

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Please highlight the recent IT initiatives at Narayana Nethralaya

Though upgrading the internal IT infrastructure is a regular activity at Narayana Nethralaya, we now want to focus more on our internal IT staff. There is inadequate manpower to support our systems and processes. Thus, we are looking seriously at recruiting quality people. We have deployed the Hospital Management Information System, which has been integrated with Electronic Medical Records (EMR). The software has been developed in consultation with Bangalore based Srishti Software.

What challenges does a hospital like Narayana Nethralaya come across, when it comes to extending better services to patients?

Ever since Narayana Nethralaya Started as a one-man clinic in 1982, the progress to becoming a super-speciality hospital in the nineties, the increasing number of patients and the complexity of running the hospital have been some major challenges. Over the years, a large amount of medical records of patients have accumulated and are posing a challenge. We have anticipated increased costs of keeping paper records in the coming few years. Since we are operating in very sensitive area such as medicine, the foremost challenge is the resistance to change and a new way of doing things. The enormous and complex EMR structure for eye care, needs constant upgradation, as we use the EMR. It is also very difficult for us to train doctors on the various latest technologies. We are planning to maximise the usage of EMR among all consultants on a continuous basis. Research is vital to any kind of treatment. Earlier our doctors were facing problem while treating old patients, as the history of the patients were not available electronically. With the implementation of EMR, the process of searching records has become easier.

Could you brief us about the project on public health record system?

My idea about the public health record system is to digitise health records of the public by enabling active participation by patients, doctors, labs, pharmacies and then linking it to various EMRs across hospitals. The information generated over time will help future medical practices that would be personalised, predictive and have a high level of safety. Diseases could be detected long before they appear, by analysing data and suggesting appropriate interventions, to help retard onset of the disease or even prevent disease from afflicting a person. Genetic diseases and variations could warn patients to take appropriate actions. Telemedicine and remote diagnosis could help every patient in need of a super-specialist opinion. This will help the rural poor, as they do not seek early care due to various reasons. This technology would also reduce costs in medical care.

We are working with YOS Technology for the public health record system. The project is in the beta testing stage currently. This system will not only help the rural masses get the benefits of specialised doctors’ consultation, but will also help other hospitals connect with a single system. It will change the whole system of medical treatment and will enhance the facility of telemedicine in India.

How far has the introduction of technology at your hospital helped the management, doctors and others provide advanced treatments to patients?

Technology is most widely prevalent in the Ophthalmology department, as most of our equipment there is digital and computerised. EMR is another addition, which has made the information management easy and efficient. Cutting edge imaging equipment based on state of the art technologies like Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscope, Digital Fundus camera, Ultrasound Biomicroscope, Confocal Live cell imagers and LASIK have been well adopted to provide the patients with state of the art treatments. This is at par with those available in technologically advanced countries.