Challenges: Hospital Management System launch in India

We have been in the market for the last few weeks selling our product, MediOps. It is a Hospital Management system for small and medium sized hospitals. Everybody knows that this is a large addressable market space and is expected to grow many folds in the coming years. The IT adoption in these units is abysmal. Looking at these factors, it seems that selling such a product should be a cake walk, but that is not so. In this post, I thought to share the challenges we are encountering and over the next few months, I would share our strategies and the output of these strategies.

Makin Economic Sense of IT: The basic problem with the healthcare industry is the prevalent culture of the healthcare industry. Other than the large multi-specialty hospitals, most of the other healthcare providers don’t make business decisions based on productivity or process improvement, which dominates other industries. Instead, they make decisions based on how much money do they have to spend and what will it do for the providers personally (and immediately). The related problem is serious shortage of trained staff who can handle even a basic software system as these providers are not willing to take the cost of such staffs.

Lack of Govt. Regulations: I personally investigated the patient case history and patient registration data of multiple units and found that there is a strong need to standardize the medical records of patients. Every unit is trying to follow their unique way of recording patient related data without caring about the problems it has created for the patients. It is a patient’s responsibility to maintain their own records. If he/she does not maintain it, the other doctors/hospitals will treat the patient without having a proper case history. Most of the developed countries have achieved more 90% standardization in this. Even in the US, The HITECH Act, part of the 2009 economic stimulus package (ARRA) passed by the US Congress, aims at inducing more physicians to adopt EHR. Title IV of the act promises incentive payments to those who adopt and use "certified EHRs" and, eventually, reducing Medicare payments to those who do not use an EHR. Funding for EHR incentives is also added to the Medicaid system. Government of India must also enforce such an act in order to encourage every provider to adopt an EHR.