Eye hospitals should use ICT to provide eye care to rural patients. Though there are at least 15 million people in Tamilnadu State  who need eye care, only 20% actually receive it, said Mr R D Thulasiraj, Executive Director, Aravind Eye Hospitals.

Speaking at a panel discussion on ‘Creating Health Next’ at Connect 2010, India’s premier ICT event, being organised by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), Mr Thulasidas said that Tamil Nadu’s major eye hospitals are effectively using technologies like Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Google Maps to reach out to unattended villages in the State to hold eye camps and meet the eye care needs of the rural masses.

Ms Preetha Reddy, Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals, said that after direct healthcare and telemedicine, the industry was witnessing Version 3 of healthcare with facilities like e-health (electronic health) and m-health (mobile health). Though it was the doctor who administered the treatment, the medical staff, when empowered by technology could also do wonders in saving lives, she asserted.

In her address, Dr M Kamatchi, Expert Advisor, Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project, said that there were at least seven districts beyond Madurai, like Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, Kanyakumari and Ramanathapuram, in the State that lacked a super specialty hospital or service. Corporate Hospitals could use this as an opportunity to establish their presence in those districts and help in bringing healthcare to the reach of people across the State.

Dr Kamatchi informed that the data collected through the Kalaignar Insurance Scheme helped in securing a lot of information on trends in health issues, like the increased cases of hip replacement surgeries in the State, in the recent past. The Kalaignar Insurance Scheme of the Tamil Nadu Government had disbursed insurance claims for over Rs 500 crore so far, he informed.

Speaking on the importance of maintaining a healthcare database, Ms Sangita Reddy, Executive Director, Apollo Hospitals Group said that maintaining Electronic Medical Records (EMR) of people of our country right from birth, to immunization to various health milestones to death, would serve to as a great source of clinical research that would help in individual treatment as well as serve as a national Electronic Medical Records repository.

Elaborating on the need for increased sharing of information on health care issues, Ms Reddy informed that in India, as on January-May, 2010 there were 108,000 odd people waiting for organ transplant, whereas there were only 5,800 donors during the period.

Mr Somil Nagpal, Health Specialist, South Asia Region, The World Bank, in his address, said that India with over 3 crore health insurance smart card holders has the largest number of smart card holders in the world. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority has over 100 million health insurance records which would be a great source of data analytics and help design better insurance products, he said.

Delving on the issue of health insurance that raked up much controversy in India in the recent past, he said that technology would help bring about greater transparency in health insurance sector.

Dr K Ganapathy, President, Apollo Telemedicine, in his address, said that there are a number of mobile applications in sectors like commerce, entertainment and sports. But M-Health or mobile health is conspicuous by its absence in a country like India which has over 50 per cent mobile penetration and where healthcare is still unreacheable to many rural masses.