Patient Centricity in Healthcare Outsourcing (Part One of Two)

It’s no secret that the Healthcare industry is undergoing massive changes, and that these include the solutions that outsourcing service providers are bringing to the market.  Last week I caught up with HCL’s Healthcare head, Gurmeet Chahal to discuss these trends and current areas of focus for HCL.

Bill Huber: HCL has referred to something called “Patient Centricity” in describing its services approach in healthcare. Can you describe what that means in practical terms?

Gurmeet Chalal: As you know, right now, the healthcare industry is undergoing what are perhaps the most dramatic changes of any major sector. HCL looks at healthcare in light of this transformation and sees enormous potential for innovation, with a focal point for that innovation around the patient. We are achieving results by converting technology platforms, capturing and organizing data and providing services that are focused on transforming the insights from the data to outcomes for the patient with the goal of improving the patient’s experience. We believe that this ultimately needs to be done over the lifetime of care for the patient.

Our approach is based on connecting the insights obtained through HCL’s rich experience of working with both payers and providers, along with a heritage of working with the medical device industry, and of course, pharma. Utilizing technology, analytics and services, and leveraging our global scale and partner relationships, we are able to bring clinical insights together. At HCL, our culture is focused on “ideapreneurship”, involving individuals who take accountability on behalf of our customers. Part of this is how we use cross functional teams and have built the “4I” framework which enables us to stitch data into a unified fabric and build an intelligence layer on top through our understanding of business data and analytics. For example, think of a medication adherence strategy. If the patient is adhering to a prescribed medication regime, presumably the patient will benefit through improved health, the payer will benefit through reduced cost of care, the provider will benefit through improved patient outcomes and lower readmissions, and the pharma will benefit through improved market share. The combination of technology, analytics and services makes this possible through enablement of better monitoring, tracking and follow-up with patients and caregivers to improve regime adherence.

In addition to our aforementioned relationships, HCL has its own provider business in India. It comprises the country’s first nationwide networked multi-specialty clinics in affiliation with Johns Hopkins Medicine International. This provides us with our own unique insights that will fuel research that will become increasingly important for providers in the US as the Asian population increases here.

BH: You mentioned your “4I” framework. What is that?

GC: It’s about how you obtain and what you do with the right Information. The four “I”s refer to Intelligence, Interaction, Integration and Insight. So, we have a strong Intelligence layer, comprising patient segmentation, benchmarking, analysis and simulation and the like. Then we have an Interaction layer, which is multi-channel and includes social media, mobile, in person and web. Third, there is an Integration layer which collects and organizes information from multiple sources, including from Pharma, from labs, from providers and so on. For example, through a partner, we have built a platform that enables integration of data from over 160 medical devices in real time. Lastly, there is the Insight layer, which provides actionable care and business recommendations.

About the author

Bill is a sourcing industry leader and active proponent of helping to create professional standards and best practices. His areas of expertise include sourcing strategies, shared services and contract negotiations. Throughout his career he has been responsible for both business development and delivery of strategic advisory services in procurement, vendor management and operational transformation.