Healthcare and Offshore Outsourcing

Healthcare is probably one of the last industry segments that is going to be touched by offshore outsourcing in a big way going forward. The potential for offshore talent to be used to reduce cost is huge. There are a lot of companies that are already ahead of the curve other are catching up and a few have no clue what it is. Let us look at the landscape of what is going out of the country in each segment..

What does offshore outsourcing mean to Health care industry?

1. It means getting more done with less money
2. Faster turn around because of follow the sun 24x7 model of operation
3. Reduced cost of care to the patient
4. Every segment can be touched by this phenomenon - Payors, Providers, Medical Devices, Pharma, Biotech, CROs

In competitive terms causes a un even playing field between players, if Payor A outsources and saves $$ the other payor has little choice but to leverage the model. Hence the question is not "Will they?" The question is "when will they?"


Payors

1. "Greed is Good" - they live by that so early adopters
2. Claims processing is a dud job let the offshore vendors do it
3. IT application maintainence - throw it out to India
4. Application development - partly going offshore as it needs SME knowledge
5. IT infrastructure outsourcing - going going and gone..

Medical Device Companies

1. R&D services
2. Enterprise IT application development and maintainence services
3. IT infrastructure services
4. call center services for product support and claims management
5. Enhancements of device applications
6. Enterprise Planning application outsourcing - SAP, Oracle etc.

Providers

1. IT application maintainence and development services
2. Clinical process outsourcing - radiology reads, claims management, collections
3. Total IT infrastructure outsourcing

Pharma

1. One of the biggest adopters of the model
2. IT ADM services and Infrasturcture services
3. Pharma R&D services
4. ERP implementation services
5. Clinical Reaseach and Trials services


Ok.. hope that gives a flvour of what jobs will stay and what jobs will go. I feel there is enough money being spent by each of these industry segments to keep every resource busy.

Infection Management - Random Thoughts

You go to a hospital with one dieases/symptom, there are others that are there for other diesases and symptoms. So the result? Well you end up catching the other guys diesase at the same time exposing your disease to someone else...

Now that we have squared away why we need Infection Management - let us talk about what is being done to control it. Well - simple answer not too much in majority of the hospitals.

Well for starters check the following link

http://www.infectionacademy.org/default.asp

Following are key challenges in Infection Management today

1. Lack of proper standards that hospitals can follow irrespective of the size
2. Lack of strong focus on this aspect of spread of diseases
3. The money bag of Health Care - Payors yet to take enough notice of this problem and have some expensive consultants provide them with eye gogging numbers
4. Patient demanding to undestand what this means to him when he walks in for a treatment.

I feel this area has a lot of scope to build standards that are effective and implementable at a broad level of IDNs and small hospitals. Like they say you cannot improve what you cannot measure..

Disease Management - Random Thoughts

There has been a lot of talk about disease management, Payors love it as it reduces cost, Providers love it because the patient is visiting the hospital often and taking care of himself better, patient loves because he can control his own well being. Well are all the above a myth? How practical are they?

Here is what the industry will create soon

1. Every payor, provider will rollout a disease management platform - too many to handle or centralize
2. Tools are becoming way too complicated with device integration etc. and lack common sense.
3. Too much data and no intelligence

Myths
1. Patient once he enrolls into a program will embrace it and be faithful to the program like an ideal husband
2. The more features you provide the better the patient will handle his disease
3. One size fits all model - what about the aging population that lacks computer skills?

Reality

1. Low patient enrollment rates and High drop out rates have caused more than half of the disease management programs to close down or be un viable.
2. The more the features the less it is used by patient
3. One size does NOT fit all - you need a 360 degree solution not just an online tool
4. Behavior - the single most important thing that needs to be changed for the patient to help him manage his disease.
5. Naming the disease management portals "Chronic" gives it a negative connotation and discourages people from using it. Lack of consumer sensitivity and experience.

Well, so much for today. Bottomline I feel disease management is here to stay - it needs to be positioned well, the sensitivities are to be managed well and patient incentivated for using the same.