Healthcare providers face many challenges in the delivery of medical services in India, particularly to suburban and rural areas. Teleradiology?the transmission of radiological patient images, such as X-rays, CTs and MRIs, from one location to another for the purposes of interpretation and consultation? promises to improve patient care by allowing radiologists to provide services without actually having to be at the location of the patient. Companies such as GE, Cisco, Teleradiology and many more smaller companies are increasing their focus towards low-cost models for better imaging techniques. Imaging procedures are growing approximately 15% annually against an increase of only 2% in the radiologist population. This opens a major opportunity for the teleradiology service providers in the domestic market.
Teleradiology Solutions CEO Arjun Kalyanpur says, ?With the rising healthcare costs, the demand for newer technologies is increasing in emerging markets. Technological advances and the pressure to lower healthcare costs have encouraged the healthcare services providers to outsource the diagnosis of radiology images to the developing and low-cost countries. Healthcare organisations are looking to make use of teleradiology to improve their operational efficiency.? Teleradiology Solutions is a unique company working night shifts, covering over 100 US hospitals and other parts of the world from Bangalore providing diagnostic reports to over three million patients, using teleradiology.
Teleradiology improves patient care by allowing radiologists to provide services without actually having to be at the location of the patient. This is particularly important when a paramedic such as a MRI radiologist, neuroradiologist, pediatric radiologist, or musculoskeletal radiologist is needed. Since these professionals are generally only located in large metropolitan areas working during day time hours, teleradiology allows for trained specialists to be available round the clock.
Teleradiology utilises standard network technologies such as the internet, telephone lines, wide area network (WAN), or over a local area network (LAN). Specialised software is used to transmit the images and enable the radiologist to effectively analyse what can be hundreds of images for a given study.
Infiniti Research, a London-based research and consulting firm, says that the global market for teleradiology was around $6 billion in 2008, and is expected to grow at double digit rates in the next five years.
An increasing number of patients and healthcare providers are requesting for radiology images and reports to be examined and prepared by radiologists with expertise in sub-specialties, thus, driving the need for teleradiology. However, the concept of teleradiology is yet to evolve in the Indian market though it has the potential. ?India can become a hub for radiology services. The growth drivers for this segment include the geographical positioning of the country, strong R&D and the abundance of medical graduates who can be channeled into the field of radiology,? Kalyanpur points out.
Healthcare analysts inform that the shortage of medical experts as well as advances in telecommunication is fueling the demand for teleradiology. Going by the number of private hospitals and diagnostic centres coming up across the country, the unprecedented number of scanners and X-ray machines being sold and the large number of people going for preventive health checks, the shortage of radiologists has started showing up. That is the reason for the teleradiology fast picking up in some cities.
The market for teleradiology evolved sensing the need for night shift services, especially emergency services which needed overnight reporting in the US market. While daytime reporting was more towards niche areas, night shift reporting became very essential. In emerging markets such as India, till last year, connectivity and broadband were major constraints. These issues can be overlooked now with more players in the market, but the awareness with the government bodies is yet to be established in its full form. ?Teleradiology can play a vital role with the health department to take mass health programmes to the rural areas in government hospitals. There are less than 10,000 radiologists in the country and there is a huge demand for manpower in this sector,? Kalyanpur says.
Teleradiology utilises standard network technologies besides advanced graphics processing, voice recognition, and image compression. It is also used in clinical trials as well. In fact, Biocon has entered into an agreement with Teleradiology Solutions to provide teleradiology reporting services to Clinigene, Biocon?s clinical research arm. The agreement is to shorten the development cycles by using its clinical trials radiology reporting service. Delays in the drug development cycle can be an issue of concern for pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms involved in drug development. These are related in part to delays in reporting of radiologic scans performed to confirm that the patient has responded positively to the drug being evaluated in the clinical trial.
Aravind Sitaraman, president (inclusive growth), Cisco Systems, says that while the government has ambitious plans for healthcare in rural areas, the lack of locally available doctors is severely affecting rural healthcare and even basic health services are difficult to get. He explains the success of using technology to bridge this gap for five villages in Raichur district in Karnataka as part of Cisco?s project Samudaya.
Doctors from big hospitals in cities were able to offer healthcare services to rural areas. This model is already operational in Raichur district since August 2010. This technology opens follow-up specialist care something that has been denied for decades. Specialists in the fields of gynaecology, pediatrics, orthopaedics, attend to patients over 500 km away and help improve the health parameters.