TNN
Bangalore, Mar 11: After having a tumour in her stomach scanned, Sara Green (52) is waiting for report in a Chicago hospital. The hospital’s radiology department e-faxes the scan images to a team of radiologists in Bangalore, 13,750 km away. These images are analyzed and a detailed report is made. The final report then takes a ballistic jump at the push of a button. Green receives the report within 30 minutes of the scan. This could well be the case with fractures too.
Had she let her hospital’s radiologists do the same job, she would have had to wait 4 or 5 days to get the report. That describes the acute scarcity of medical fraternity in the US. An aging population makes the health situation even more challenging. Over 60% of Americans are 50 plus. Also, healthcare is very expensive.
It was in this context that healthcare providers in the US and UK found an ideal “nighhawking’’ partner in India, like in other outsourcing services.
When radiologist Dr Arjun Kalyanpur started his teleradiology venture, Teleradiology Solutions, in Bangalore five years ago, he was looking at it as a ‘nighthawking’ arrangement. The idea was just to capture those emergency/accident scans of patients taken by US and UK hospitals in the nights when radiologists are away and sleeping. But today, the business dynamics have changed, says Dr Kalyanpur. “The opportunity has become bigger and better now. We are seeing a 40% jump in business over the past year.’’
The company gets thousands of scans/images from several hospitals across the world. On a single day it reads over 1,000 images and writes reports. Half of the 6,000 hospitals in the US have access to tele-radiology technology. This means a huge potential for Indian providers.
Indian radiologists offer round-the-clock service at costs 40-50% less than those in the US.
Pune-based TeleDiagnosys Services is another leading player. “We have seen a 100% jump in the number of images we have been receiving compared to last year,’’ says Dr Ashish Dhawad, COO, Telediagnosys Services. Seeing the huge potential of CPO(clinical process outsourcing), Apollo Hospitals and Manipal Hospitals are looking at it. RiteSource is another player with focus on the US and Europe. The country has only 10,000 radiologists of whom around 300 are engaged in CPO.