Elaborates Sid Nair,
Vice President and Global General Manager, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Dell Services, In conversation with eHealth team

What are the trends in the healthcare industry pertaining to the use of IT?
Last year the government decided to increase the public spending on healthcare from 1.4 to 2.5 percent of GDP over five years which is good yet very low. Globally, the US economy has spent upwards of 16 percent of GDP, and we see similar trend with all the other economies as well. Most other developed world countries spend close to 10 percent of their GDP on healthcare. The second data trend is the global IT spend in healthcare which is close to 50 billion US Dollar. Of this, about USD$1 billion comes from India as per Gartner. Indian healthcare market will grow at upwards of 17 percent year-on-year and will scale up from USD 53 billion or so in 2011 to about USD 80 billion+ in 2013. But again, the growth will come primarily from basic services itself. US market is over USD 2.3 Trillion in comparison and we are seeing lots of innovation. India spend is growing quite faster when compared to global services growth of about five percent andIndia has potential to grow at 20-30 percent given the scope for penetration. So from a trend perspective, India should invest in getting basic IT systems in place. The market size that we have estimated in India, primarily of providers and physicians, include 45,000 hospitals of which 26,000 are private hospitals in urban areas. And if we consider the segments with respect to the number of beds, there are about 1,000 hospitals with more than 100 beds and these are our target audience as they generate almost 80 percent of the market. Its a very disperse and fragmented market with IT focus mostly on non-clinical processes and data points. This is contrary to the global perspective where the attention is more on clinical systems like EMR, EHR and others.

In India, we will be introducing our solutions on cloud-based platforms.Well offer a host of applications including an HIS system, ERP and an EMR application on cloud

How is Dell taking part in this healthcare opportunity in India?
India is a big market for us, and of the 14,000 employees worldwide just on the services side, we have 7,000 employees based here. So from that perspective, we will continue to have our presence and we will continue to source talent and capabilities in the country. Even Philippines is a big market from which we are supporting customers globally. We want to leverage on the capability that we have already built in India and prospect new opportunities. So one, we are looking at more hiring in India to support our global customers. When we look at the offshore mix in different industries, traditionally offshoring in healthcare industry is very low because of regulation and compliance in the US, however that is changing slowly. Now that we have adequate capability built in India, resources who understand the healthcare system, we want to begin the business with Indian customer base as well. In India, we will be introducing our solutions on cloud-based platforms. Well offer a host of applications including an HIS system, ERP and an EMR application on cloud. HIS on cloud will cater to non-clinical needs, while ERP on the cloud will address finance and HR requirements. An EMR application will cater to the core clinical requirements. So, it will be a stack of all the three together covering most of a hospitals requirements. This will be a subscription based system based on pay per use, thus converting big one time investment into smaller operational expenses.

Tell us more on your cloud based services offered in healthcare?
Our healthcare cloud business is a very profitable business in the US and we understand the technology very well. There are 70 hospitals that run on our cloud in US. Apart from that we also have a large physician network that is operating on cloud which we host and is primarily aimed at outpatient popu-lation. EPIC is also a popular EMR that we host for community hospitals and we also offer DR services on the cloud. We also have our imaging archiving business on the cloud and have over 6 Billion images on the cloud. That is a major part of our business and we have launched it in Europe as well. We can bring it to India at an appropriate time. We understand data privacy and security and are compliant to all the needful guidelines for the same.

What kind of response are you expecting from the Indian market on your solutions?
I hope it will be an encouraging response because there are price points that we are going to come at to make it affordable and that is why we are going the cloud way. We are hopeful that, with the IT readiness already there in many of the hospitals in India, it should not be an issue. We are expecting the market to adopt HIS on cloud solution and then progress to ERP adoption. Then, in a couple of years, when the market is ready, we can look at bringing EMR on the cloud. We understand the needs of the Indian market, so we strive to offer the products that they need and then scale as the market gets a little more mature.

What is your plan for the next five years?
We are going to launch a new solution with HIS and Cloud and aim to gain considerable share of the market in the next two years. This will be followed by the introduction of the EMR stack, followed by digital archive imaging service. We want to grow the cloud business and plan the way forward for introduction of new products ahead of the curve.

Dell Unified Clinical Archive (UCA)
The Dell UCA integrates with leading PACS systems. This customised solution has three components. First, the Clinical Data Management layer aggregates patient data from all PACS, HIS and specialized imaging applications. It offers a choice of multiple VNA software partners to best meet your requirements and needs. The Clinical Archival layer features on-premise (with the DX Object Storage Platform) and cloud deployment picture archive options that can be used independently or as a hybrid, ensuring disaster recovery and instant scalability. Finally, the Clinical Collaboration Portal allows easy access, secure sharing and integration of clinical data across a variety of platforms in a patientcentric repository. This facilitates both image integration in Electronic Medical Records and image sharing through a Health Information Exchange.

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