[Eric R.] Week 2

I had an extremely productive end to my week! It began quite slowly – I finished making calls to all of the hospitals that I hope to visit in the next five weeks. Hopefully I spoke to all the right people! It has been extremely difficult trying to navigate the various levels of bureaucracy of the Indian hospital system…

Yesterday, I had my first interview scheduled, at Sahyadri Specialty Hospital. I asked the two other interns in my office to come with me on my first visit, to ensure that I didn’t drown before learning to swim! They ended up being very helpful. I walked into the very busy hospital and approached the information counter. I let them know that I had an appointment with the Medical Director, who happens to be the head of neurosurgery as well. Turned out he was in surgery, and was unable to spend time with me. The woman at the information counter pointed us upstairs to the HR department, who told me that first, I needed approval from the Corporate Office, located five minutes down the road. Well. We took the trip to the CO, and were waved into the HR Manager’s office, a man named Mr. Moses. During introductions, he let us know that he spent some time in North Dakota during college as an exchange student, and after mentioning that I attend UofM, he said he was offered an American football scholarship there, and turned it down! I was shocked. Mr. Moses was very helpful, and after getting a better understanding of what my project was all about, informed me that Sahyadri doesn’t use an EMR system. Exasperated, we left the CO in search of other hospitals in Pune.

Yogendra, one of the other interns at OHUM, is also a doctor, and suggested we visit a few hospitals to see if they would grant me an interview on the spot. We were 0-for-2 when we rode into Sancheti Hospital, a more community-oriented hospital specializing in orthopedics. We went to the Administrative Offices, and were waved right into the Administrative Director’s office. Dr. Vaidya was gracious enough to let me have an interview with him, and I learned an immense amount in our short time together.

I’ve observed many things this week; most importantly, people here, although extremely gracious and pleasant, are extremely indirect and not proactive. 95% of my emails are ignored, and it takes going through six different people on the phone to get where I need to be. After reaching the correct person, they result in the classic, “Why don’t you email me?” There are N-number of times (to borrow a phrase I’ve heard often here) that someone along my journey could have said, “Oh, don’t bother with Sahyadri – they don’t have an EMR system,” or “Try Sancheti Hospital, I know they are generally very helpful.”

This observation directly affects my current opinion of EMR systems in India – I believe the country as a whole is simply unprepared and unwilling to adopt such systems. Until the government decides to take steps to enforce EMR adoption (unrealistic), only the biggest-and-richest hospitals are going to consider moving in that direction.  I’m excited to visit a Max Hospital – they are one of the largest hospital chains in India, if not the largest, and they have implemented an EMR system across all of their locations. I’m scheduled to meet with them at the end of my trip, in Delhi.

I am heading to Mumbai on Sunday to visit four hospitals. This will be the true test of my preparation, and I look forward to visiting larger hospitals there. And who knows, maybe one of them will be a full-fledged, model-EMR hospital? What’s that? You have another question for me? How ‘bout you send me an email, and I’ll get back to you…

-ericr