Techindia: A Game-Changer for Healthcare Management Services in India

    CHENNAI, INDIA, August 24, 2016 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Back in the days of the BPO industry boom, outsourcing knowledge-driven processes was not considered a norm. Additionally outsourcing critical healthcare was not even on the "maybe" list! But, it was an opportunity that could create a whole new industry, an opportunity that would offer value simultaneously to the service provider as well as the healthcare establishment.

Somebody needed to get out there and create that space, educate healthcare enterprises and persuade them to outsource elements of business that they considered as core. But, before that, this needed to be done right! It was crucial that the basic steps were laid out perfectly. Learning what this potential opportunity had to offer, setting up a well-oiled delivery system, convincing the potential stakeholders that it will work and following through with the promises that were made was a mammoth task.

An idea is only an idea till it is researched, developed and delivered--no one understood this better than Sathya Kumar R, Founder and CEO of Techindia.

A decade ago, Sathya was the "somebody" that decided to discover the value hidden in outsourcing the core, knowledge-driven part of the healthcare business and the healthcare establishments saw the value in what he was proposing. As a result of having access to a larger pool of skilled workforce, businesses began to perform better, revenues increased, costs decreased, and edge over competition improved.

Today, he is an efficacious entrepreneur running a successful healthcare management services enterprise (also Asia's largest), a pioneer in offering scalable, superior, dependable and cost-effective knowledge-driven services for the demanding healthcare industry.

DISCOVERING THE VALUE IN THE 'POTENTIAL' OPPORTUNITY

For Sathya, choosing a path that was then unique and hence risky came with a whole bunch of challenges. First off, the customer acquisition curve is steep considering the fact that no business wants to outsource its "core". To start with you need to determine an offering, articulate the USP and scout for customers with the hope that they will buy into your idea. Then, you invest and build a sustainable delivery ecosystem, learn about your customer's business, identify pain areas, pinpoint opportunities and then propose how you are going to solve their problems for them. You need to conduct research, pilot programs and come up with innovative ideas mostly on a no-obligation basis, to instill confidence and increase trust.

No matter what you do, on the flipside there can be premature engagement closures and short-term test projects that never convert into long-term retainer clients. You must at all times, be ready for sudden surges in business and ensure that your delivery system is well prepared to support any eventuality.

All this costs a whole lot with absolutely little or zero guarantee that it will work. However, Sathya took the plunge, braved the first few years and positioned himself to take advantage of the changes in the industry, the market place and the world!

Today, healthcare management is a well-established industry and is only growing. In fact, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India has predicted that with increased digital adoption, the Indian healthcare market, which is worth US$ 100 billion, is likely to grow at a CAGR of 23% (i.e., US$ 280 billion) by 2020.

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Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India has predicted that with increased digital adoption, the Indian healthcare market, which is worth US$ 100 billion, is likely to grow at a CAGR of 23% (i.e., US$ 280 billion) by 2020.

The need for comfort and convenience is driving physicians and patients alike towards adopting the new digital 'connected health' phenomenon. Physicians find that they are able to perform better when they have all the information at their fingertips. To meet the needs of the people healthcare establishments are trying to stay with the new generation in a cost-effective and efficient manner--outsourcing a bunch of its knowledge-driven work.

HEALTHCARE SERVICES OUTSOURCING: BENEFITS

For healthcare establishments, when outsourcing, skilled workforce is definitely a great benefit. However, cost still remains priority as skilled experts in countries such as South-east Asia and South America are priced at less than half of what the company would spend in its home country. Other benefits include: flexibility to increase or reduce staff as required; and consistent execution of work (advantage of being in different time zones).

While the above benefits are highly valued by enterprises, there are a whole lot of other intricacies that need to be taken into consideration when providing knowledge-driven services to the healthcare industry. After all taking accountability for a life is an extremely huge responsibility.

A few benefits that outsourcing can bring to the table is listed below.

Increased profitability: Easy access to a competitively priced yet skilled workforce and world-class infrastructure helps enterprises save bottom line costs by almost 40%. This obviously helps their topline margins and increases profits. Also, considering that the patients are being monitored from wherever they are for most conditions, we can prevent hospital re-admissions.

Access to trained and experienced professionals: Patient monitoring requires not just skill, but also dedication. It is a carefully and accurately analysed report, where every minute medical decisions are scrutinized, re-scrutinized, and rigorously tested as per strictly set SLAs before it is shared with the caregiver. These professionals are proficient and are ready to take on projects of any size and complexity, with minimum directorial hassles.

Quality patient care: The patient's comfort and well-being is the foundation of high-quality healthcare. Whether it is cardiac, sleep or general vital statistics, the monitored reports are analysed and digitally ready on demand for the doctor to review and decide next steps in patient care.

Cost-effectiveness: Since in-depth knowledge of the chosen field and consistent precision is key to ensuring meticulous reports, local resources can end up being very expensive, especially if the workforce in question is skilled and trained to carry out high profile medical analysis work. Also, retaining staff, acquiring new ones in case the need arises and training them is challenging and costly. When outsourced, your concerns are reduced by more than half.

Better patient experience: Considering that the medical practitioner has to now focus solely on the patient's condition. He is better placed to understand the ailment and make accurate diagnosis. Also, since for certain conditions, the patients can be monitored in comfort of their homes--it makes them feel more comfortable, helping heal quicker and improving overall care experience thus resulting in goodwill for the organization.

Improve practice and expand care: As new lifestyle related diseases seem to be sprouting more often now, medical establishments can concentrate on research and innovation, thus furthering the cause of finding cures. Also, they can now look at venturing into a generation of new healthcare systems and services. The Indian medical services market has been globally recognized as lucrative and is growing at a very fast pace. Quote box - A report by 'Research and Markets' has indicated that the Indian medical services market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.16% to reach US$ 1 Billion by 2020. The same report has said that private sector telemedicine industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.35% to reach US$ 24.37 million by 2020.

IMPORTANCE OF CARDIAC/SLEEP DISORDER AND STEP-DOWN ICU MONITORING

Cardiac and Sleep monitoring (unlike lifestyle diseases such as Diabetes) are patient-specific and require the parameters to be heavily customized within the framework of care. With today's hectic lifestyles, a myriad of heart rhythm conditions, seem to be the order of the day. In some cases, these abnormal cardiac arrhythmias are not serious and can be regulated with a few simple lifestyle changes. But, in certain other cases they can be life threatening. The thing is these abnormal rhythms and the resulting symptoms are transient and thus difficult to detect.

Tests such as ECG, report the activity of the heart at a given point in time and are not necessarily accurate. Thus, beat-by- beat monitoring of the heart becomes important. In fact, a clinical trial sponsored by Biotronik and recently published in The Lancet indicated that remote monitoring of patients with implantable cardiac devices reduced the mortality rate for cardiac patients by 50 percent and improved their clinical status by nearly 10 percent.

Techindia's Heart Rhythm Interpretation Services is one of a kind. Advanced communication software technology tools, subject matter experts, multiple layers of data security, flawless techniques, and a deep understanding of the client's needs form the core of its Cardiac center of excellence. Patients across the world are monitored every minute of everyday throughout the year on near real-time basis and their heart conditions/body vitals are analysed and reported accurately within a very close timeframe to any location. Besides, all the reports are available to be viewed via mobile devices anytime, anywhere. According to a report by the renowned market research firm 'Markets and markets', the global cardiac monitoring (CM) and cardiac rhythm management (CRM) devices market is poised to reach $26,646.5 Million by 2020 from $21,137.7 Million in 2015, at a CAGR of 4.7% from 2015 to 2020.

Distinctly unique yet strongly inter-connected, a lot of sleep-based discrepancies are closely linked to issues with the heart. Poor sleep can be a huge reason for a host of health concerns. In fact, getting a good night's rest is as important as eating right, exercising. Conditions such as Sleep Apnea, a common but widely under diagnosed condition can be fatal if not detected.

An increasing number of individuals are being diagnosed with sleep disorders today. According to 'Centers for disease Control and Prevention', an estimated 50-70 million US adults have sleep disorders. This is slowly becoming a global phenomenon--another report titled "Global Market Study on Sleep disorder Testing Services" by Persistence Market Research (PMR) said that the sleep testing services market is expected to be valued at US$ 8,395.7 Mn by the end of 2021, reflecting a CAGR of 12.9% during the forecast period (2016-2021).

CONCLUSION

In this new era of value-based care, exhaustive business knowledge and focus beyond operational efficiencies are critical requirements to survive and grow. The only way to build trust and loyalty is through sheer differentiated delivery excellence and continuous value creation throughout the journey.

"Today Techindia is Asia's most comprehensive Cardiac diagnostics company monitoring over 1.5 billion heartbeats a day, supporting over 12,000 patients and 20,000 devices monthly, and globally monitoring over 300,000 patients a year. We strive to provide value at every point of contact with our clients, be it huge medical establishments, smaller nursing homes, laboratories, etc. Our services provide customers with agility, flexibility, scalability and cost benefits," says Mr. Sathya Kumar.

Where the future of healthcare is concerned, Sathya says that explosion of mobility, connected devices, insights gained from big data/analytics; digital care management and robotics will rise and pose profound impact on customer expectations.

However, Sathya is a strong believer of the advanced technology-healthcare convergence. He envisions a space, where highly advanced technology meets healthcare to create a futuristic connected health system that allows people (patients, doctors, care-providers, healthcare establishments); and systems (the entire bulk of technology-both hardware and software) to interact seamlessly making healthcare an easily accessible service, and thus the world a better place.

Techindia's central reporting centers offer a complete range of customized overnight sleep study interpretation services to support any sleep disorder diagnostic program. Sleep labs/Hospitals/physicians/R&D establishments world over benefit out of Techindia's comprehensive sleep disorder interpretation solutions to increase their productivity and top line profits.

Sathya has brought together a sophisticated workforce of board certified and experienced technologists and physicians, who manage the center of excellence for Sleep management. Another "core" medical industry that could benefit from outsourcing is Clinical trials. Product development and drug research companies, globally, find it extremely useful to engage Techindia's R&D/managed services to offset their time and cost.

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