Need for Charak

Consulting

Charak allows doctors to conduct 'repetitive activities' in an efficient and effective way. This ensures high quality on each interaction with every patient.

It is important to understand that any software cannot replace a doctor. It is a smart tool to help the doctor in carrying out their usual routine more efficiently.

In the following text, there are few example of scenarios when it will help the doctor. There can be many more.

Typically, we are engaged by our clients for:

  • When the patient turns up without the old prescription the system provides the entire patient history.
  • When 70% of the patients appear with similar ailments, have same diagnosis and need the same treatment. The system helps by providing clinical guidelines from standards and also as set by the doctors themselves.
  • When patient presents in an emergency and there is very little time to find the blood group. From the past record the system will remember and tell the doctor the blood group of the patient.
  • When due to large data there is a chance that drug - allergy and drug - drug interactions get overlooked. The system remembers all such interactions and presents a warning before any order is sent that can cause negative effects to the patient. When the patient and doctor and the anesthetist are in the Operation Room and the linen has not been changed. The system makes sure that all resources are effectively scheduled ahead of time and all stakeholders are informed to be prepared.
  • When the patient reaches a cardiologist with urological problem. The system avoids this situation by intelligently scheduling patient based on their chief complaint.
  • When the radiologist sitting in Bangalore wants to review the scan done by the field team in rural areas. The system brings the scanned image to the radiologists' office and carries back the report to the field team in almost real time.
  • When the doctor wants to remind himself of the medication given - when the patient calls for further advice. The system provides all past history of the patient including medication.

It cannot replace the doctor:

  • For observing vital signs and symptoms
  • For conducting the diagnosis of the patients
  • For prescribing the medicine
  • For following up the progress
  • For advising the medical care plan

However, it can assist the doctor above:

  • By keeping a record of the historic vital signs and symptoms
  • By giving a quick view list of diagnosis, as per the medical protocol and other historic diagnosis - based on the symptoms
  • By checking if the medicine has a drug-drug interaction, or if the drug is out of stock in the pharmacy
  • By setting reminders for in-patient medicine administration, or giving alerts on vital signs, or reminding the doctor for following up the discharged patients
  • By formalizing the care plan and ensuring proper scheduling of care providers, medicine and medical devices
  • Overall, Charak is an IT tool helping the doctor to carry out his core activities more efficiently, while relieving him from non-core administrative activities

Benefits from Asclepius Consulting to Patients

Customers appreciate being able to access their information easily than waiting for hospital staff to find their information on paper chart. Their cost of treatment is reduced (only relevant investigation) with decreased length of stay & minimum number of visits (including reduced investigation time).

The treatment for the patient is available as early as in the ambulance and they get care through personalized and standardized cure plan. An integrated than 'fragmented' treatment is provided wherein for example, a cardiologist never forgets about patient's history of high blood pressure, diabetes and a bad kidney. The patients get remote care from specialists as and when needed.

The privacy of patient's data is never compromised. Offering patient education material delights the evolving health conscious consumer segment.

Benefits from Asclepius Consulting to Hospital Owner

Asclepius delivers on two key concerns of hospital owners - Improved patient care and Enhanced profitability. Asclepius ensures correct records are available at the earliest. This reduces clinical errors and hence enhanced patient safety.

Enhanced revenue

  • Increased loyal 'customer' base: Charak enables hospitals to become very close to the patients by having all patient history. Patient will see low spend on investigation, more convenience/proximity of healthcare service and they will be assured early care in the "golden hour".
  • Increased geographical reach due to higher referral base.
  • Improved billing process (including claims with insurance companies) - Attempt to reach "No Bills Lost".

Increased resource utilization: Freed up resources lead to higher revenue/throughput and lower costs

  • Asclepius with its strategic eye and healthcare IT tools increases utilization of doctor's time. The doctors only consult relevant patients based on their specialty. It makes the way for the hospital owners to get more from their doctors without stretching them.
  • It cuts down waiting time on various fronts - waiting time for want of Operation Rooms & equipments, waiting time for patients in OPD. It cuts down on repetitive process by ease of access to patient history. There is right prioritization based on severity in emergency rooms.
  • The hospital owners also see better utilization of operation room, ICU and Wards which leads to improved throughput of patients and hence higher revenue & profit. Real estate is freed up due to less paper records, which can be used for value added purposes.
  • The cost is further reduced by better inventory management in pharmacy and reduced man power need.

Modern management processes

  • The business owners can use the data available to monitor and drive better business planning - inventory cycle time, disease patterns, number of disease treated in a year etc.
  • Maintaining data in electronic format makes it easily available for research and seminars.

Benefits from Asclepius Consulting to Physician

A better designed process help physicians in getting improved patient throughput and hence increased earning. This is achieved by 'sensible' scheduling of patients. No more patients sitting in front of a physician who should have gone to some other specialists. All patient history easily available (less time spent on "phone") and physicians never overlook any cross specialty history of the patient.

The physicians can build their own Clinical Practice Guidelines or they can use the published guidelines by other clinicians. They are also well supported by the clinical decision support module available in Charak. For example, drug - drug, drug - allergy and drug - disease interactions are evaluated.

Hospital resources (e.g. room, bed, support staff etc) available at the right time & place. A good documentation and reduced clinical error saves them from unwanted litigation.

A robust billing process makes sure that their payment is never "forgotten".

Benefits from Asclepius Consulting to Clinical Staff

Processes designed by Asclepius' consultant leverages Charak and helps support staff (especially nurses) in spending more time on clinical needs than administrative needs. They are always ready with what the physician wants as they can retrieve records on a click of mouse. They don't have to run around to collect results but these come in to their computer automatically.

Benefits from Asclepius Consulting to IT Staff

The Charak suite of product runs completely on Internet Explorer and hence no installation required on the client machines. This reduces a great amount of installation and support need of your IT staff. In addition, Charak is built with high quality, which shields your IT staff from getting "bugged" due to the "bugs" in the software product. The team will help you to set up the most efficient and low maintenance IT infrastructure.