Dinesh Samudra,
Managing Director and CTO, PALASH Healthcare Systems (PHS), reflects on the market trends and future plans of the company with eHealth Magazine

Please share with us your views on the current Healthcare IT trends in India and which segments of Health IT are poised for growth in the coming years?
The Indian healthcare sector is likely to see investments totaling close to USD 78 billion in 2012 compared to investments of USD 34 billion in 2006 and 80 percent of all these investments comes from the private sector. The huge market in India that remains to be tapped is reflected in the hospital to bed density per 10,000 population, which was in India at 12 beds compared to 31 and 39 in the USA and UK respectively. Even developing countries such as Brazil and Chine have 24 and 30 beds per 10,000 population. When it comes to doctors India has an aver- age 0.6 doctors per 1000 population against the global average of 1.23 doctors. We are optimist as measures are being taken by the government. The government has decided to increase health expenditure to 2.5 per cent of the gross domestic product by the end of the twelfth five year plan, from the current 1.4 per cent. Now we have 100 per cent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is permitted for health and medical services under the automatic route, also allocation for National Rural Health Mission (NHRM) is proposed to be increased from 18,115 crore in 2011-12 to `20,822 crore in 2012-13.

How has the healthcare market in India especially hospitals grown in terms of maturity in investment and adoption of IT?
India is considered to be the fastest growing healthcare IT market in Asia with a growth rate of approximately 22 percent. In 2010, the estimated market size of Hospital Information Systems (HIS) in India was close to INR 4.6 billion and is expected to reach INR 9.8 billion in 2015. The top three states with highest number of hospitals with HIS installed are Maharashtra, Delhi and Andhra Pradesh. Eastern states are the most under penetrated in terms of usage Healthcare IT systems.

As new devices make entry into the healthcare segments, what role mobile based applications have in the future?
I can say that mobile based applications have good future in healthcare market. To name a few “ patients EMR is available 24×7 to both patients and doctors, It will also help to establish Patient Cantered Medical Services , provide various alerts to patients like “ medication, education and alerts to care provider related to patients diagnosis and out of range diagnosis results. In the future looking at our growing population providing quick medical assistance to patients is going to be the need of an hour and there mobile devices can play major role.

Tell us more on the partnership with Zensar and expected outcomes from it?
Palash Healthcare Systems has proven track record in India and Middle East in implementing enterprise IT solutions for healthcare industry through its existing team. This partnership with Zensar is targeted towards developing new markets and propositions in key geographies. Zensars focus on emerging markets will help us in breaking in to these markets in India and Middle East.

Tell us more on the new focus areas and target groups for Palash in the coming years for profits and business expansion?
We are entering a new phase in product development, with the introduction of our next generation products in the Healthcare IT solutions space. With total of 160 installations (30 out of India and rest in India), in future we are planning to grow outside India with focus on Web based product of PALASH. We are also focusing on our flagship product In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) which has huge market not only in India but also outside India. The product features data maintenance, treatment processing, analysis and result management for IVF clinics. IVF procedures require data maintenance at various stages right from diagnosis to treatment and the further follow-ups. There is a need for comparison of patient data between and among various treatment groups. There is also a need for continual updating and revision when new data of the patients become available as also at the end of each cycle.

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