Title:Technology for Emergency Care Management & Healthcare Delivery Authors Varun Bahl works as a Business Consultant in the Healthcare payer IT field with more than 8 years of experience. His areas of interest include Health Reforms, Medical IT Process Optimization and Health Innovations. Varun has ex pertise in many healthcare businesses including Health Insurance, Third Party Administration, Pharmacy Management and New hea lth technologies and innovations. Varun can be reached at [email protected]Vaibhav Srivastava works as a Business Analyst in the Healthcare domain consulting field with more than 3 years of experience. His areas of interest include Health Reforms, Healthcare Process Optimization, Innovations, Thought Leadership and Healthcare Strategic Consulting. This paper was submitted for eINDIA 2011 conference Page 1
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Technology for Emergency Care Management & Healthcare Delivery-Varun Bahl ,Vaibhav Srivastava
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8/3/2019 Technology for Emergency Care Management & Healthcare Delivery-Varun Bahl ,Vaibhav Srivastava
Emergency Services are restricted in India- to sum up the current state of emergency services and its delivery;there is a famous quote by an Ex – Dir AIIMS, “If you feel there is an emergency, better arrange for your own
transport than to wait for an Ambulance”. Most of the population is completely unaware of emergency
procedures and appropriate contacts. Emergency delivery systems are also constrained, due to lack of system
integration, leading to poor delivery of care.
Statistics on India Emergency Care- Drivers of Change:
With more than l Lakh Road Traffic Accidents related deaths, 98.5% Ambulances used for transporting dead
bodies, 90% of A m b u I a n c e s devoid of Oxygen of any Equipment, 95% Ambulances having untrained
personnel, most ED doctors having no formal training in EM, misuse of Govt. Ambulances and 30% mortality
due to delay in care, India portrays a worse image than what existed in USA of 1960s (Source:
http://www.iiems.org)
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8/3/2019 Technology for Emergency Care Management & Healthcare Delivery-Varun Bahl ,Vaibhav Srivastava
IT Integration supported by real time data communication systems can achieve the dream of providing optimum
quality emergency care in the least possible time. Integration of various stakeholders through advanced
technological devices can lead to increase coordination of care.
Indian healthcare system needs to recognize IT as a strategy for survival. IT can not only reduce manual
intervention but also enable required decision support at the point of care. A rule based platform can enable care
givers in adhering to standard treatment protocols.
Thirty per cent of emergency patients in India die before they reach a hospital. Over 80% of accident victims donot achieve access medical care within one hour of the incident. Efficient real time communication systems can
offer invaluable capabilities of reducing this time gap, so the treatment starts as soon as the request is raised.
There is a need to establish an Emergency Response Center, a dedicated centralized hub equipped with state of
the art Call Center Facility, which will act as a nodal point for any emergency issues, on the lines of Emergency
response center in Gujarat. It will allow the person to call a single number for his entire healthcare emergency
needs rather than remember hospital emergency numbers.
Emergency Response center will be equipped with the latest technology to
a. Support the patient until the emergency service arrives
b. To co-ordinate emergency care from the nearest healthcare center (Private/Public)
4.Leveraging Technology for Integrated Emergency Care Management
Patient’s medical history, in case of an emergency, is most one of the important input for effective treatment in
a crisis situation, thus ensuring availability of adequate medical information to the care givers can make a big
difference.
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8/3/2019 Technology for Emergency Care Management & Healthcare Delivery-Varun Bahl ,Vaibhav Srivastava
Electronic Medical Records is the way forward in this direction, a Standardized way of representing the medicalinformation in an electronic format that is available to healthcare professional at the click of a button can assist
in an effective care delivery mechanism.
As soon as the information reaches the contact person, emergency management team can look at the critical
information, such as allergies, ailment history, prior diagnosis, tests, report and treatments to decide on the line
of treatment needed for a particular emergency scenario. Hence the process can be initiated even before the
patient’s actual condition is analyzed.
As technologies evolve, they create avenues for path breaking changes in society, some of the technologies that
can help in better Emergency Care Management are
a. Telemedicine
Telemedicine are like virtual clinics where patient is at one end of the terminal while the doctor is at
the other end of the terminal, the consultation happens through a telepresence / Video conference that
also has basic devices attached to provide doctors information on patient current state, these include
BP Monitor, Glucometer, ECG monitor, Thermometer, Stethoscope etc.
Telemedicine has a huge scope in providing medical consultations almost on a 24X7X7 basis to
everyone subject to them having access to basic IT infrastructure
b. Online Traffic Updates
Although relatively new concept in India, where traffic management does not generate interest for
Technology companies, inputs from traffic management tool can help Emergency teams to plan the
evacuation of patient in better fashion
c. Integrated update system
Other updates include weather updates, area population updates, cultural festival updates, event
updates such as rallies, exhibitions and games etc. can help the Emergency response team to plan their
deployment of resource to address maximum population
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8/3/2019 Technology for Emergency Care Management & Healthcare Delivery-Varun Bahl ,Vaibhav Srivastava
Integrated call center with capability to route the calls to multiple customer service representativesfrom a single number. Ability to handle and support level of variation in call flows with minimal
infrastructure can help in maintaining connectivity with the patient/patient’s know in and during the
emergency until the help arrives
e. Cloud – Right way to manage Emergency Infrastructure
Concept of cloud is based on renting infrastructure rather than setting it up. Cloud infrastructure can be
very helpful in managing the cost of infrastructure, since it is known fact that call volumes grow during
a certain period of during the year, such as weather changes, festivals, winter etc. Thus allow
Emergency Response Center to maintain its services at optimal levels.
5. Cloud based Integrated Emergency Care Management System
Cloud based Integrated Emergency Care Management System intends to fill the gaps that currently exist in the
way emergency care services are delivered in India. This extensive solution can resolve multiple issues that
currently exist across the spectrum of stakeholders involved in emergency care.
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8/3/2019 Technology for Emergency Care Management & Healthcare Delivery-Varun Bahl ,Vaibhav Srivastava