Aussie software delivers cost-savings in Indian hospital

Peter Dinham
Thursday, 23 April 2009 16:28

Business IT - Technology

Global software vendor, InterSystems Corporation, has secured a deal with a major Indian hospital which is deploying its Australian-developed TrakCare advanced Web-based healthcare information system (HIS).

InterSystems today announced that Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, a 650-bed multi-specialty state-of-the-art hospital in New Delhi, has deployed the InterSystems TrakCare system, with early benefits including increased outpatient throughput, savings through better inventory and medical package control and support for pharmaceutical substitution, more rapid access to laboratory results, reduced adverse allergy and drug interaction incidents, and improved continuity of medical records.

Dr. Karanvir Singh, the surgeon responsible for the HIS implementation at the New Delhi hospital, said TrakCare's ability to automate patient billing in a very complex environment was a major contributor to Sir Ganga Ram's efficiency improvements.

“With over 400,000 outpatient visits per year, the hospital has reduced its outpatient processing time by 40% to increase patient throughput, and the automated allocation of collected billing items saves 1.7 hours in a 4-hour registration shift.”

Singh said a rapid solution for the hospital’s complex billing was possible because TrakCare was Web-based and easy to configure with little or no customisation.

"This is what contributes to the flexibility of the software and the reason for its success in a complex hospital like ours."

According to Dr Singh, TrakCare is replacing the hospital’s previous 20-year-old HIS over competing solutions because of Intersystem’s' track record of successful HIS implementations at hundreds of sites around the world and its technology advantages.

Singh said TrakCare's flexibility allowed it to overcome a number of factors which initially indicated that the hospital would be a difficult implementation, because of the hospital's 35 specialties, many with different workflows which had “hardened" over the hospital's 50 year history, making them difficult to change.

"Basic rules for each department are framed by the departmental head," Singh said, adding that “although this helps each department provide the best possible care, it leads to a complex implementation environment. This is where TrakCare's extreme flexibility was useful -- almost all configuration was done via master tables alone."