Many Indians still lack access to the internet, even if they have a phone. i2i and Maestros Mediline are trying to bridge that gap, the companies have ambitious plans to bridge the gaps in healthcare sector through health apps. Dhirendra Pratap Singh interacted with i2i and Maestros Mediline to learn about their corporate vision and the new initiatives in mHealth
Sham Banerji, Chairman and CEO, i2i TeleSolutions & TeleMedicine Pvt. Ltd.
i2i TeleSolutions is a provider of innovative software solutions and services for Telemedicine. BlackBerry has strengthened its innovative software solutions in India to enable telemedicine, computer telecommunications, medical electronics and imaging technologies through i2i Telesolutions.
What are the services that you are currently offer in India?
Our focus is to provide remote screening and diagnosis applications on PC and Tablet platforms, primarily in three areas: Infant and adult blindness, Remote Cardiac Monitoring and early detection of fetal defects. We partner with healthcare service providers, specialising in these areas to provide an end to end solution to the patients in remote and or rural areas.
What are your future plans?
All our plans are focussed on providing users with easy access to quality healthcare facilities.
Give us a list of the clients to whom you are providing your services. What model do you follow?
Our model for the base of the pyramid client is PPP, i.e. Public Private Partnership. The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM, a GoI program) is one of our major clients. For clients in other segments we provide a license fee or a hosted pay per use model. These are typically large private hospitals.
What is your market share in India?
Only about 5 percent of the total IT and Mobile enabled healthcare access and services market (total estimated at `800cr.) is served by existing players . Market share numbers are difficult to obtain. We are the leading supplier in the areas of TeleOphthalmology, TeleSonography and Remote Cardiac monitoring which are all emerging segments but growing at >80 percent versus the rest of the market at 22 percent per annum.
What are the innovations you are bringing into the market?
The innovations are mainly in the workflows relating to access and delivery of healthcare on Tablet platforms. This coupled with unique decision support systems available to doctors on mobile platforms is setting new levels of productivity, collaboration and flexibility for existing practitioners.
Chandra Mohan, Vice President, Maestros Mediline Systems Ltd.
One of the key innovations in telemedicine is mobile-ECG, in which a patient can immediately send his ECG report from his mobile phone to his doctors mobile phone. Maestros Mediline Systems has tied-up with Research in Motion (makers of Blackberry) for this service.
Please tell us about the services that you company is offering in India?
Maestros Mediline Systems Limited (Maestros) is a market leader in providing Information Technology (IT) products, solutions and services focused on discovering new ways for using technology to bring benefits to different businesses.
We provide services in infrastructure management, applications development, healthcare solutions, software embedded systems, medical equipment, integration and interfacing services, project management and consulting.
Maestros has successfully delivered innovative value-added services to its customers across industry verticals including retail, FMCG, government, BFSI, manufacturing, IT, telecom, BPO and healthcare. Maestros have a long term alliance with Microsoft. Also, Maestros has accrued accreditations and certifications like ISO 13485, CE certified HL7, etc. The company continually endeavours to achieve high standards.
We have competencies in advanced infrastructure solutions, business process and integration solutions, custom development solutions, data management solutions, information worker solutions, networking infrastructure solutions, security solutions, SOA and business process solutions.
What are you initiatives in Telemedicine?
The large gap between the number of doctors and patients in India has infused a deep desire into Maestros think-tank to develop sustainable long-term solutions for bridging these healthcare needs. Thus began the quest for Telemedicine solutions. For more than one decade Maestros R&D has been striving into uncharted waters and has been able to deliver some extremely useful path changing devices & solutions .
The mobile health solutions can be very useful in tackling in healthcare issues. What are you solutions in this segment?
It is an established fact that coronary heart disease is one of the leading causes of death. Every second in some part of the world a person suffers from chest pain or has a heart attack. It is commonly observed that these victims waste substantial time before seeking medical help. This could be due to sheer ignorance, lack of knowledge or the absence of an efficient support system.
Our solution eUNO R-10 is a remote ECG reporting solution. The eUNO is a simple handheld ECG device with a built in GSM modem. The system is supported by a secured web based platform the Rhythms24X7.
The patient and physician are at different locations. At the patient end is the eUNO, a standalone 12 lead ECG acquisition peripheral device. This device can capture demographic data of patient along with symptoms to facilitate diagnosis. The eUNO can store 20 ECGs. And can be configured to send ECG individually to 20 consultants.
The ECG sent to Rhythms24x7 is safely stored on this server. This server is available to valid users around the clock round the year.
The ECG, once it comes to the server, is automatically forwarded to the mobile phone of the consultant for reporting. The consultant can receive this as an email, MMS or a PDF. The expert has a simple and efficient user interface which helps him/her select the ECG, diagnose, write the comments and send it back. Every hospital is provided with their own monitoring console. At the hospital end users can login to this server with their preferred browser, using their username and providing valid password.
Potential Clinical Applications
Case 1: A patient calls in with chest pain. The paramedic or the family physician makes a home visit and takes an ECG using the eUNO 12 lead ECG machine. He enters the patient details and selects the physician to whom the ECG has to reach. He then presses the transmit button on the device. eUNO will automatically dial to the server and the server ensures that the digital ECG reaches the consultant within five minutes of being sent. The status of transmission is indicated to the sender.
Case 2: EUNO R10 can be used in ambulances for taking the 12 lead ECG and sending it to the hospital or consultant at time they are picked up and during transport. This helps the hospital to prepare for the patient and the treatment can start early thereby reducing damage to heart and improving chances of survival in case of heart attack.
Case 3: A patient with chest pain reaches the hospital casualty. The opinion of a cardiologist who is not immediately available on the premises is required. ECG using the eUNO 12 lead ECG machine can be taken and transmitted to the consultant. Treatment can be advised and started even while the consultant is in transit to the hospital to be with his patient.
Tell us about the new innovations that you are planning?
Maestros has successfully delivered innovative value-added services to its customers across industry verticals including retail, FMCG, government, BFSI, manufacturing, IT, telecom, BPO and healthcare. Maestros was awarded Technology Innovation, Mobile Healthcare Asia-Pacific, 2011 by Frost & Sullivans Global Research. Over 50 dedicated scientists are working round the clock to produce end to end solution, which caters to specific needs of healthcare delivery system through the use of software based framework, internet services and mobile telephony. The system will bridge the distance between patient and health services in the most cost effective manner.
What are your future plans?
We started our journey with medical devices and now we have developed capabilities for delivering cutting edge devices linked to tele solutions. Our first platform was Rhythms 24 X7 for delivering timely ECG interpretation and data transfer facility. This was followed by consensus (remote teleconferencing platform) and now we are on the course to deliver best home health solutions. We intend to integrate all diagnostic results in the web space to enable best treatment for one and all.
Like
Dislike
Be a part of Elets Collaborative Initiatives. Join Us for Upcoming Events and explore business opportunities. Like us on Facebook , connect with us on LinkedIn and follow us on Twitter , Instagram.
"Exciting news! Elets technomedia is now on WhatsApp Channels Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest insights!" Click here!
