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Apollo Hospitals outlines new technology initiatives

Shobha Warrier in Chennai

The Apollo Hospitals Group outlined some major technology initiatives and its plans to double its bed capacity from the present 5,000 to 10,000 beds by 2004 as part of its 19th anniversary celebrations.

Dr Pratap Reddy, chairman of the group, also announced the opening of Apollo Hospitals in Kolkata, Pune and Raichur.

The Apollo Hospitals Enterprises Ltd was formed with the merger of Indian Hospitals Corporation Ltd, Deccan Hospitals Corporation Ltd and Om Sindoor Hotels Ltd.

The enterprise has a network of 39 hospitals owning and managing 5,046 hospital beds, 10 primary clinics and over 100 pharmacies, making it the single largest healthcare provider in Asia. The group has an aggregated turnover of over Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion).

A major technology initiative planned by the Apollo Hospitals group is what is called ‘Virtual Patient Visit’, a first of its kind in India. This facilitates patient interaction with the family without the need of physical presence.

“We will offer the service to all patients at no extra cost. Through this, the patient’s relatives can get daily updates on his or her health, see pictures of the patient and can even send greetings and flowers," Dr Reddy said.

With this facility, each patient is assigned a Universal Hospital Identification Number, which the relatives can enter into the VPV section on Apollo’s site www.apollolife.com and can access all the information from anywhere in the world.

Apollo recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Anna University, which has more than 240 engineering colleges affiliated to it.

As per the MoU, Apollo Hospitals will establish telemedicine centres at all the engineering colleges so that it can provide medical consultation to the staff and students of these institutes as well as sto the neighbouring villages.

Apollo Hospitals Group, which introduced the telemedicine facility for the first time in the country has 16 telemedicine centres in India now, which the group plans to expand to seven military hospitals in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala and later on to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Ghana, Abu Dhabi and Oman.

The group is also targeting the vast Business Process Outsourcing market in the world and has recently entered into an agreement with two large hospital services groups, one from the US and the other from UK, to meet their requirements for trained hospital management personnel and para-medical staff.

The services being offered also include processing claims for insurance companies abroad and will create employment opportunities and valuable forex earning capabilities.

Presently, the group has 60 per cent of its bed capacity in owned hospitals and 40 per cent in managed ones. It plans to change this to bring 80 per cent of the bed capacity under the managed hospital network and 20 per cent in owned hospitals.

It is as a part of this initiative that the hospital announced the opening of two more managed hospitals in Raichur and Pune next month.

Another interesting offer is a 'smart card', which will have all details about a patient’s health records, that can be used anytime he has to get medical treatment.

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