Consult a Doctor online for FREE !

HealthcareMagic.com [Get More on www.healthcaremagic.com...]

•                  Consult a Doctor online for FREE!
•                  Search & Compare Doctors & Hospitals in Bangalore
•                  Doctors available Online from 9.00 AM – 9.00 PM IST
•                  Patient information will be kept CONFIDENTIAL

You can have a Live Chat with one of our doctors online between 9AM-9PM  IST (GMT+5:30) on all 7 days a week at www.healthcaremagic.com .  Alternatively, you can speak with them over phone at +91-80-41743045 between 12 noon-6PM IST from Monday to Friday.

Regards,

Medical Team,
HealthcareMagic.

Live Chat with a Doctors for FREE, Save Money, Time, Effort of Yours !

Chat with a Doctor online for FREE!

HealthcareMagic.com [Get More on www.healthcaremagic.com...]

•                  Chat with a Doctor online for FREE!
•                  Search & Compare Doctors & Hospitals in Bangalore
•                  Doctors available Online from 9.00 AM – 9.00 PM IST
•                  Patient information will be kept CONFIDENTIAL

You can have a Live Chat with one of our doctors online between 9AM-9PM  IST (GMT+5:30) on all 7 days a week at www.healthcaremagic.com .  Alternatively, you can speak with them over phone at +91-80-41743045 between 12 noon-6PM IST from Monday to Friday.

Regards,

Medical Team,
HealthcareMagic.

We’re Looking for You !

20 days since launch, more than 50000 visits on our portal which we build for you and over 850+ patients/user chatted with our Doctors online. We are now very much confident about the market opportunity and all geared up to take HealthcareMagic.com to next stage.

To assist us with our endeavor, we are looking to bring on board a Sales & Marketing Executive, who would be responsible for spreading awareness about HealthcareMagic’s services and much more. The position is going to be very challenging, filled with responsibilities and scope for innovation.

If you are interested in getting involved with a fun filled start-up environment, and benefit from working with start-up through stock options please do get in touch with us. Do forward this to your friends who could be interest in this opportunity.

Also, we’re looking for Telemarketing Executives, preferably female candidates with excellent expertise in customer handeling, customer interaction, data validation & moderation. Also, you should have good communication, interpersonal skills and okay-types english… not that good english, desi english will do!

For both opening & more details, shoot your CV (((NOW!!))) to me on my mail ID shekhar@healthcaremagic.com or directly get in touch with me on +91 9900230494.

PS: We are not looking for 1-2-3 years of experience! …0 years is fine!…We’re looking for expertise!… People who are innovative, can think what other don’t think, self-starters… You dont need to hold a shining degree from a super college. If you do that’s okay… If you want to start & start like never before, this is a chance to kick-it-off…!!

HMO or TPA or Something else

I was recently reading about the various HMOs like Blue Cross or Kaiser Permanente in the US. When I look around, I do not see anything close to that in India. Is there an organization which guides me (or forces me) to go to a particular set of doctors for any problem (I can go to others if I wish but the charges are high)? There are TPAs like TTK, MediAssist and a few more who take care of getting us cashless facility at hospitals if I have a health insurance policy. They also take care of giving us some information about the hospitals we go. But I still feel that something is missing. That something is a “decision support system”. To help the Indians at large. To educate them, to make sure they make more informed healthcare decision. To make them share their views and experiences with each other on the Internet.

This is what we look forward to. With the support from the junta at large and government and other non goverment agencies, this should be a dream worth pursuing.

I don’t know what to call it; An HMO or something else ? Definitely not a TPA as it is not associated with an insurance company. Whatever it is called, I hope the people get benefited.

Online Medical and Healthcare Informatics

Medical Informatics as the name suggests – A term being applied to a field, being described as a new discipline, which covers medical and related information, both in traditional and electronic form, along with its management, particularly by computer methods.

Informatics is definitely what we are seeing at HealthcareMagic. And that too a Consumer generated Healthcare Informatics !! Pretty cool stuff as it sounds. But have a peek at it and you realize that it is simpler said than done. Only way it can be managed is as a community. An online healthcare community. The power of Informatics lies only in the underlying data. And data for healthcare scenario is not stored anywhere approachable to the common man.

Do we know about the ”mortality rate” in a hospital we visit ? Do you know that the doctor who treated you last time was held responsible for a medical malpractice 3 years ago ? So where do we get the data from ?

The asnwer lies in the Consumer Driven Healthcare Informatics. More about this in near future.

Who is responsible for country’s Healthcare System?

From the finance Ministers budget 2008

The health sector, I allocate Rs.16, 534 crore for the sector (including NER). This will mark an increase of 15 per cent over the allocation in 2007-08. I propose to increase the allocation for NRHM (National Rural Health Mission) to Rs.12, 050 crore.

Sounds really great! A 15% increase. So much of money is going to reach the rural masses- all of 12,050 crore.

Let’s take a look at per capita figures just for the sake of taking a good hard look. So in effect the government of India has decided to spend a figure of Rs. 144 rupees per citizen for healthcare.

And for the rural population it is somewhat better (as 72% of India’s population is rural) – they get an additional Rs.150 each.

TB kills 2 Indians every minute (when it is treatable that is). And the cost of treatment of TB- just the medicines will be around Rs 3000. In addition, India has a higher rate of malnutrition among children under the age of three (46% in year 2007) than any other country in the world. 30,000 PEOPLE DIE OF RABIES EVERY YEAR BECAUSE THEY CANNOT AFFORD Rs 1500 for the vaccination.

Cuba- yes the poor, poor Cuba- Communist country and bad example to the rest of the world spends Rs 10,000 per citizen on health care. A friend of mine pointed out that most of us would not depend on the government for health care- but hat is beside the point- there are people who depend on the government- 27.5% of them below the poverty line and other poor people who are above the poverty line but still need the public health system. Even if we say only 50% of the people need a public health system in India- the government still spends just 300 Rs per person. Add the rural monies and still its just 450Rs per person. Assuming a best case scenario of state governments spending an equal amount- the maximum possible amount being spend on health is Rs 1000 per needy citizen per year. Surely we can do better than that. We lose 322, 000 of our citizens to tuberculosis, 30,000 to rabies because the government cannot afford to vaccinate them after they are bitten by dogs every year- and no prizes for guessing which section of the population is at the receiving end. And yes many of them are rural Indian citizens.

Well a start would be to reduce their extravagant expenditure – that could save up a part or all of the Rs 7.5 CRORE!! that will be required to vaccinate the 30,000 people who die of rabies every year (more than half of them are under the age of 15).

Does HR care for the Healthcare of the Employees ?

Employee health & wellness related programs are common phenomenon in every other company. But the Fact is – these programs are mostly restricted to companies with a significant head-count. For others it doesn’t make economic sense to have such programs!! For another thing, most of these programs are more decorative rather than substantial. In the end, they become mere fancy lines in the company brochure.

How will HR react to such disturbing news?

1. “Employees of IT enabled service companies are at the highest risk of suffering from lifestyle diseases. They are constantly under stress, work against the clock and defy nature at every step. Only few companies have really addressed this problem”

2. “According to recent surveys, the average worker takes nine working days off sick a year. Stress-related conditions are the most commonly reported causes of ill-health and absenteeism”

3. “Unhealthy workers are 20% less productive than their healthy colleagues and twice as prone to sickness. With figures like this, employee health definitely needs to be looked at very seriously”.

So what should HR do ? Specially in companies with head count less than 1000 employees.

HR must care

HR would do well to take these studies seriously. Investing in employee health is the need of the hour and developing a comprehensive healthcare strategy, enabled by technology to bridge the gap of time and distance, is critical to organizational success. Initial cost may appear as a hurdle, but the company stands to gain in the long haul. Not only will it benefit from a productive, efficient, motivated, creative and enthusiastic workforce, but it will also project a caring attitude – something most companies would do just about anything to have. With very good reason. Employees have a better chance of staying on and giving their best at work if they feel their employers care about them. Result ? Goodwill, productivity, low attrition rates… need one say more. On their part, employees have also become smarter when it comes to knowing their rights. They expect proper health facilities as part of the benefits package. Fitness facilities are something that modern employees expect from an employer.

Embrace Employee Health as part of Company Health

Companies should adopt a holistic form of workplace health management that does not wait for the employee to fall sick, but prevents illness in the first place by keeping them healthy. As it is commonly said, `While prevention has its expense, it is nothing compared to the cost of treating a full-fledged problem’. Companies should streamline their health plan and also have a proactive wellness initiative. Technology can be used as a big enabler to bridge the barriers of time and distance. Employees are increasingly finding it difficult to extract time from their busy schedules to visit their neighborhood physician for their mandatory health check-up. With the advent of services through technology enabled platforms like mobile and Internet, it is only a matter of time before healthcare is delivered to the offices of employees. This platform can also be used to disseminate information which will help prevent a lot of conditions before they make themselves evident.

Innovative Healthcare Service to assist the HR

For Individuals, one such service has just arrived. Visit www.healthcaremagic.com and you can start chatting with a Doctor online. This service also refers the individuals to nearest Doctors and Hospitals and arranges an appointment. The individuals can read what other patients have written about a particular Doctor / Hospital before the meeting.

For the corporate (HR decision makers) who want this service for their employees, please contact : Mr. Kunal Sinha at +91-9880758583 or by email at kunal@healthcaremagic.com .

How good one’s life is, depends on the Liver

A collection of medical knowledge called Concerning Vision dated circa 300 B.C. & compiled by the school of Hippocrates, states that ‘nyktalopia’ (night blindness) afflicts children who are suffering from diseases like otitis, sore throat, or fever.

The treatise goes on to recommend “raw beef liver soaked in honey” for the treatment of the condition.

Animal liver, now identified as a rich source of Vitamin A, has been a known cure for eye diseases since 1500 BC, according to an Egyptian papyrus.

However, one marvels at the observations of the Hippocratic school with respect to the relationship between night blindness and infectious diseases in children. Especially in the light of modern research which indicates a relationship between Vitamin A deficiency and child mortality (?due to infectious diseases.?)

If any further query related to Hair Loss, you can have a Live Chat with doctors online between 9am-9pm IST (GMT+5:30) on all 7 days a week at www[dot]healthcaremagic[dot]com for FREE . Alternatively, you can speak with them over phone at +91-80-41743045 for FREE between 12noon-6pm IST (GMT+5:30) from Monday to Friday.

And Referral Contest Winners Are…

Our first contest for our users & response from junta is simply amazing! More than 10000 referrals in just 10 days!!

Recently we started a new feature on HealthcareMagic called Refer a Friend. Using this you can easily tell your friends about unique services we’re offering on HealthcareMagic.com. If you’ve visited & explored HealthcareMagic.com then you know the importance of all healthcare services we provide. We’re bridging the gap between you & your health… And we wanted you to tell it to your friends, so your friends can also avail these services, especially our Chat with a Doctor feature…

We want to thank you for making HealthcareMagic.com, a household brand in Online Healthcare. In the last 10 weeks, we had 65000 visits and 3000 live chats with patients already done. Just visit HealthcareMagic.com to explore following features…

• Chat with a Doctor online for FREE !

• Search & Compare & Fix Appointments with Doctors & Hospitals

• Doctors available Online from 9.00 AM – 9.00 PM IST

• Patient information will be kept CONFIDENTIAL

What’s more, you can win Rs. 1000/- if you Refer your friends to HealthcareMagic. It’s simple. One single click and you can import contacts from Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook etc.

Winners of the last week contest are available at www.healthcaremagic.com/winners . One of your friends may be a winner…

1. Vijay Sharma – T Shirt

2. Nisha Reddy – T Shirt

3. Sundaran M – T Shirt

4. Vaibhav – T Shirt

5. Rahul Singh – T Shirt

6. Kashi Soni – T Shirt

7. Vishal Roy – Rs. 1000/-

Don’t wait – visit www.healthcaremagic.com NOW to refer your friends…

The Health Seeker and Quality of Healthcare Delivery

Accessing healthcare facilities is a high involvement process for any individual. A typical care seeker would explore and research before taking any decision regarding the choice of provider, especially if he is looking for a solution for a serious health issue. Th e opinions of influencers like family and friends have always swayed the decision of an individual with regards to which healthcare provider he chooses. However, with more and more people migrating to cities and countries where their social support systems have to be built from scratch, the scenario is changing rapidly. It has become imperative that a care seeker be enabled to make quick judgments from publicly available information sources in order to circumvent the immediate absence of influencers. Furthermore it has become essential that publicly available information sources themselves be reliable, easy to understand and qualified.

 

It is prudent to have a peek at how a person seeks healthcare before delving into the riddle of ‘quality’ in healthcare. Determinant models of health seeking behavior like Andersen’s Healthcare Utilization Model propose that apart from external factors like social, cultural & environmental factors, the healthcare system itself infl quenches the health seeking behavior of an individual. Th is means that intrinsic elements of healthcare systems and healthcare providers are consciously & subconsciously analyzed by the care seeker before he makes a decision. And it would not be injudicious to presume that quality of healthcare being delivered is an element that would influence the decision of a health seeker.

 

However, the underlying observation of all health behavior research is that health seeking behavior does not always take ‘the form that scientific medicine thinks is most appropriate’ . What this implies is that people may take treatment from hakims or from super-specialists with equal degree of hope and trust. So is there a way of comparing the ‘quality’ of healthcare being delivered by a hakim and the super-specialist like a cardiologist?

 

Let us take a break from this confounding ground reality to have a look at how quality of healthcare providers is measured by academicians, regulatory authorities and providers themselves.

 

Various consultants and accrediting bodies have developed detailed methodologies to assess the quality of healthcare being delivered by health care providers, mainly hospitals. Most of these models are based on research conducted or funded by health regulatory bodies in the Western hemisphere. These models are either based on observation of processes or outcome measures (or both). There are complex models that evaluate both process and outcome measures.

 

Some of the process based elements of quality are:

 

1. Access (e.g. ability to get urgent appointments, adequate number of surgeries performed)

2. Chronic Care Processes (e.g. maintenance of long term records, regular review)

3. Emergency Processes (e.g. Aspirin at arrival for acute myocardial infarction)

 

Some outcome measures used to evaluate quality include:

 

1. Number of Caesarian Sections per 100 births (high rates indicate inappropriate use of C-sections and hence inferior quality)

2. Number of complications per 100 surgeries

3. Number of nosocomial infections (infections acquired in hospitals)

 

The above measures are just a tip of the iceberg and there exist hundreds of such measures, each being well thought out and well researched.

 

Nevertheless, the major drawback in each of these measures is that it requires the health care provider to disclose outcomes and processes transparently. It also requires independent audits by strong, autonomous agencies or regulatory bodies. Moreover, the indicators are not easy to interpret for the lay person.

 

Which brings us back to the initial enigma of how does the health-seeker compare the quality of two 100 bedded hospitals, let alone deciding between cholecystectomy and olive oil therapy for bladder stones. The answer probably lies not in the methodology of quality analysis but the quality of the source of information itself !!! i.e. the source of information for the health seeker to make his health seeking choices. And in this case quality would be defined by the credibility and trust that the care seeker places on the source.

 

As mentioned in the beginning of this article, public sources of information, like health websites, are being increasingly relied on. Hence it is essential to invest in maintaining the quality of these sources. To build this credibility the ’source’ will have to utilize some of the above mentioned measures and indicators to assess a healthcare provider’s quality. But this will not suffice.

 

It is important that a constant learning process be set in motion with care seekers being able to voice their personal experience about a particular health encounter. It is a movement towards consumer centric health care and patient satisfaction is at the core. After all, beyond all measures and indicators, quality of the health care provider is a sum total of individual experiences of health care seekers.

 

One such initiative in this direction is www.healthcaremagic.com, which allows care seeker to highlight their opinion about a healthcare provider. It also allows the healthcare seeker to do a live chat with a qualified doctor who can guide the care seeker in identifying the best place for seeking the medical care.