Bangalore's Remote Healthcare Services

Date: Monday, August 12, 2002 3:07 PM

*** H-1B NEWSLETTER ***

Get the Facts on H-1B at
www.ZaZona.com

Next time you are bleeding to death in one of our hospital emergency rooms
you may want to ask them if your X-rays are being examined in Bangalore.
That's because hospitals will soon be outsourcing their medical jobs in a
scheme called "remote healthcare services". Hopefully their internet
connection doesn't go down when your doctors need to know what's causing
your heart to stop.

Manipal hospital doesn't seem to have their own webpage although you can get
some information at http://www.manipal.edu/hospital-bang.html. Perhaps they
should get a webmaster to make a home page before they start online
diagnosing of American patients. That would help them to debug their
internet software before American patients die on the gurney.

The Indian owned bodyshop Wipro is teaming up with Manipal Hospital in
Bangalore to examine medical data on US patients. Wipro, like TATA, is a
bodyshop that imports H-1Bs into the US. I wasn't aware until this article
that they are so involved with outsourcing. Wipro can be seen in the LCA
Database. Most of their LCAs ask for 30 or more visas each.

This article mentions that the Massachusetts hospital that will use this
service is unnamed. Wouldn't it be in the best interests of the patients if
they knew who was diagnosing their diseases and injuries?

http://www.siliconindia.com/shownewsdata.asp?newsno=16072&newscat=Technology

India to provide clinical services to the U.S.
IANS

Friday, July 19, 2002

BANGALORE: Harnessing its highly developed information technology and
medical skills, India will soon provide emergency room services and clinical
process outsourcing (CPO) to hospitals in the U.S.

The first step towards extending remote healthcare services has been taken
by Indian IT major Wipro's healthcare and life science business division,
which has tied up with a major hospital at Massachusetts.

Images of the radiology scans from the unnamed hospital would be viewed here
at the Manipal hospital, which has got the outsourcing contract from Wipro.
The reports would be sent back in the shortest possible time by
radiologists.

"Of course the radiologists will be supervised by our professionals who have
American medical degrees. They could be Americans or Indians with American
degrees. Like business process outsourcing, this is clinical process
outsourcing," says D.A. Prasanna, vice chairman of Wipro limited and chief
executive officer of Wipro healthcare and life science.

The supervisory staff for the CPO would be part of Team Wipro, which would
set up a center for excellence shortly here in India's tech capital. "Our
next step would in areas like pathology and cardiology as well as emergency
room services soon," Prasanna told IANS.

"There are two challenges that hospitals face in the U.S. One is of
productivity and the other is of clinical process. The hospital, in fact,
has 650 IT professionals in the hospital and they may not be replaced if
they leave. We will be filling up the gap for the hospital from here.

"Similarly, if the hospital has shortage of medical staff, we will be able
to provide the services from here for the emergency room using technology
and doctors here," says Prasanna. "The global market for such services is
billions of dollars."

Wipro is the first Indian company to provide such CPO services to the U.S.
In Bangalore, a radiologist is a tele-consultant to a hospital in the U.S.,
studying daily on an average 20 radiology scans.

The move is significant for Indian IT companies as well as the healthcare
sector.

"Because of India's global reputation in IT and medical skills, India is
capable of taking a good chunk of the healthcare business abroad. It is a
$30 billion plus game," Apollo hospital group chairman Pratap Reddy told a
meeting of the Confederation of Indian industry last week.

Prasanna was speaking on the sidelines of a news conference called to
announce acquisition of GE medical systems information technologies (GemsIT)
and its intellectual property in a $5.73 million all-cash deal.

GemsIT had earned revenue of $2 million last fiscal.

"This is not enough. We are determined to create a major upside of it in the
next one year," Azim Premji, chairman, Wipro limited, told reporters. GemsIT
is being renamed Wipro healthcare IT Ltd. on completion of formalities.

The acquired company's hospital information system package is in use at 20
hospitals, including the Apollo group, Manipal group, Wockhardt and Fortis
healthcare in India and the Saudi German hospital in the Middle East. The
product has some unique features.

"For example, if the readings of blood test go beyond the range, the
software package automatically dials the telephone number of the patient's
doctor," adds Prasanna.

Wipro healthcare IT limited would be focused on three areas: hospital
packages, services like software for clinical trials, and drug discovery
solutions for the pharmaceutical sector.

"We have three more customers, apart from the CPO for the Massachusetts
hospital. For one of them, we are creating the software platform for
development of instruments for genetic research. Another is a medical device
company for which we are involved in product engineering," he said.

Help to Keep ZaZona.com Online

Donate to the Cause at
http://www.zazona.com/Donations.htm

Back to archives