A revolutionary
diagnostic kit
With
these low cost devises, patients can access specialist medical
opinion at low cost
Venkatachari Jagannathan
9 June
2004
Chennai: An electro cardio gram (ECG) test for
Rs25? Whats more, an electronic ECG / stethoscope /
thermometer / blood pressure / pulse measuring equipments and
a software that enables video conferencing / electronic
archiving and printing of medical records caan be had for
Rs.10,000!
Well that is what the two young and enterprising
promoters of the Neurosynaptic Communications (P) Ltd, Sameer
S Sawarkar (31) CEO and Rajeev Kumar (32), COO, have done with
their sexy five-in-one device, but christened unexcitingly as
remote diagnostic equipment. At the market, the traditional
equipment would cost around Rs.40,000, all
together.
The battery-run device resembling an overgrown
television stabiliser, is expected to revolutionalise
healthcare delivery in rural areas and also help practicising
doctors in managing their clinics.
Though all the measuring equipments look alike their
traditional counterparts, the main components of the remote
diagnostic equipment are electrodes and probes for ECG,
temperature, blood pressure measurement, electronic
stethoscope, a headphone for sound capture and the software.
The ECG channel comes in two variants — a 5-lead, 7-channel
devise and a 10-lead,12-channel piece. Incidentally, the
temperature probe is designed to take the body heat under the
armpit.
So how does this system work? Imagine a village
internet kiosk with a personal computer and a printer. The
remote diagnostic equipment is connected to the PC and the
required software is loaded. The kiosk PC is then connected to
the doctor's PC through a video / audio conferencing facility.
Once a villager comes to the kiosk, he can talk to the
doctor via the video / audio conferencing facility. The doctor
then activates the remote diagnostic equipment at the kiosk
from his PC and advises the kiosk operator to take the
patient's temperature (keeping the probe under the armpit).
The doctor can see the reading on his computer. The diagram
resembles the image that appears whenever we download
something from the web.
Similarly, the doctor would advise the kiosk operator
to place the stethoscope at the relevant spots and the doctor
could hear the lub dub by through a headphone. If an
ECG reading is to be taken, the kiosk operator places the
leads and the reading is seen on the PC monitor. Likewise, the
blood pressure reading could be seen on the monitor screen
operating the equipment that looks like traditional
equipment.
Finally the doctor makes his diagnosis and types out a
prescription, which can be seen on the PC at the kiosk and an
output obtained.
The entire process takes the same time as personally
seeing the doctor, but at a fraction of the cost. Moreover,
this system actually delivers specialist healthcare to the
much-neglected rural patients who, till date, have access to
only the poorly-managed government healthcare
centres.
Explaining the development of the product, Kumar says,
"We received valuable inputs from the doctors and others while
designing this kit. But we had to keep the target price at
Rs10,000."
According to him, the product meets the standard test
norms. "We also compared our equipment generated reports with
existing machines and got similar results, the doctors too
came to the same conclusion."
In addition, the duo was guided by the TeNet group of
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, headed by Dr Ashok
Jhunjhunwala. "Dr K Vijayaraghavan, director, National Centre
for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, also helped us a lot," he
adds.
One of the fears expressed during the design phase was
the possibility of a patient getting a shock while using the
stethoscope. "So we isolated the stethoscope and other probes
from the power unit," he adds. According to him the system is
not hungry for bandwidth.
Says Sawarkar, "Initially we will market the kits to
the Chiraag Internet kiosks run by n-Logue Communications Pvt
Ltd. We are also looking at hospitals, telemedicine players,
individual doctors, financial sector players like insurance
companies and others."
As it is a low-value, high-volume product, the duo
plans to outsource the manufacturing activity. "Once volume
picks up we might consider our own facility," remarks
Sawarkar. According to him, the first year sales would be
around 750 units.
Neurosynaptic Communications is also engaged in
developing a solution to enable the blind to 'see'. The
eight-member company is  working with National Centre for Biological Sciences
and has developed prototypes using patented technologies and
discussions are on with eye hospitals to undertake clinical
trials.
List
of reports on Neurosynaptic Communications (P)
Ltd
List
of reports on Healthcare
| 
