leaders speak
“Centralised
IT Architecture is Essential” As the steering lead of Sterling Hospitals, Dr Rajiv Sharma, CEO, Sterling Hospitals, Ahmedabad shares various technologies to operate healthcare facilities and follows a patient centric approach Sterling Hospitals, Ahmedabad was started in the year 2001,with a vision to be a preferred choice provider for ethical, superior and holistic healthcare solutions. As a healthcare organisation we would like to have a humans, viable and patientcentric approach in our services. We aim to build and operate world class healthcare facilities using latest medical technology by optimally trained medical professionals. Information communication technology enables effective communication to all stakeholders and hence helps a healthcare facility achieve operational excellence. ICT plays an important role to support organisation vision by seamlessly integrating all functions of hospital as a single system and delivering right information to care providers at right time which is critical for delivering quality patient services.
IT architecture Sterling group of hospitals have its presence in six cities of Gujarat and we have centralised IT architecture that connects all six units to one location with point to point connectivity. Our HIS application hosted at central location and all units access application remotely. We have implemented HIS system to all units which takes care of front-office and back office operations with equipment interfacing. We also use SMS technology to send various transaction events to doctors, patient’s relatives and care providers. Sterling Hospitals is engaged in providing high quality medical and surgical care in a host of critical specialties for effective patient care we use technologies in various sections including Philips and Siemens Cathlabs, digital panel and radiology diagnostic equipments. We have CT scan – 40 slides, MRI 1.5 Telsa (GE), 4D colour doppler, mammography and radio imaging solutions and in pathology equipments we have Vitros 5.1,
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Vitros 250 and 950, Hi-end automatic biochemistry analysers, hematology analysers, microbiology analysers, PCR lab, immunology analysers and blood bank. In software applications we have centralised Hospital Information Management System (HIMS) which take care of front-office and back office operations, in-house systems are developed which includes SMS solutions, surveillance system, MIS system and many other customised solution developed on latest .net platform. We use Microsoft exchange for communication and also use internet for academic and connecting to external world. We have Sun servers with oracle database for managing applications and redundant connectivity with all locations to provide high uptime to care provider. ICT enables up gradation in method of treatment starting from patient Electronic Medical Records (EMR) which helps to understand patient history. All historical information can easily be accessed and shared to doctor instantly. With the help of ICT in healthcare, patient treatment has become more inclusive. Diagnosis and method of treatment is critically dependant on the availability of high-quality, fast and accurate data and reporting. Once a diagnosis has been made then correct method of treatment can be chosen. Smart embedded processor based devices monitor patient condition and make dynamic changes based on patient condition. Such devices send SMS alerts to care provider which helps in treatment of patient.
Benefitting through ICT With the help of audio and video equipments expert doctor’s advice in critical operations and patient condition can be monitored by doctors sitting at any place in the world. Telemedicine and teleradiology help to eliminate distance barriers and can improve access to medical services. ICT innovations like