CASE STUDY ON ELKAN MEDICINE
ELKAN medicine is a pioneer firm in research in medicine. This company is constantly engaged in inventing new drugs and over the years, it has emerged as a leading company in the field of research. ELKAN medicine was founded in 1995 with the sole aim of inventing new medicines for healthcare in India. Over the years, ELKAN medicines have also ventured into hospitals and presently it is having more than 20 hospitals in leading cities of India. These hospitals are an excellent source of voluminous health related data for ELKAN medicine. Since India is a diverse country with lots of variations in climate and eating habits among different regions, the data collected by ELKAN medicine from its hospitals located in different regions, provides an exciting platform for healthcare analytics. Realizing this, ELKAN medicine is focusing on proper analysis of the collected data. To analyze the data, ELKAN medicine has developed a Healthcare Analytics System (HAS) integrated with Geographic Information System (GIS). GIS stores, integrates, edits, shares, analyses, and exhibits geographic information for appraising decision making. GIS applications facilitate decision makers or users to analyze geographical information and compare different areas in order to understand patterns between them. Although GIS is widely applied in oil exploration, transportation and e- governance, this property of GIS to track and aid in comparison of geographical areas finds extensive application in HAS of ELKAN medicine.
ELKAN medicine has applied GIS technology in developing its Healthcare Analytics System (HAS). HAS is fetching all the data from ELKAN’S hospitals. All hospitals at ELKAN medicine incorporate a standardized system to collect patient’s data, in proper format such as name of person, age, gender, pin code, area name etc. All this information is then stored in a central database. To validate the pin codes and area specified by the patient, the data entry by the patient is cross verified by HAS. This is done through the application of GIS technology integrated in HAS. GIS is already a repository of geographical information about India and hence it can cross check the entered area and pin codes. By applying mapping technology, even the longitude and latitude of the area are traced. To augment its analytical abilities, HAS has gone a step ahead and integrated census data into its system. All this information viz. Patient data, GIS and Census data, serves as input to HAS. Using all this information, ELKAN medicine has not only been able to gain a competitive edge in the healthcare industry, but is also a leader in serving the society the best possible manner.
Application of analytics aids ELKAN medicine to perform a complete analysis of collected data and yield various beneficial outcomes. HAS has made it possible for ELKAN medicine to predict the possible outbreak of an epidemic in a particular area. For example, analytics can identify if large numbers of incidents are reported with the same disease from a given area. From the patient data entry and diagnosis stored in the system, HAS can tab the number of patients diagnosed with the same specific disease within a small time period and coming from a particular area. This information can then be used as an indicator of some possible epidemic that can spread in that area. ELKAN medicine can then generate awareness in people in those areas to prevent the outbreak, or measures to be taken in case a person gets afflicted by the disease and can also monitor the supply of medicines required to treat that disease, so that there is no shortage in the chance of an outbreak. Besides, it is also possible using HAS to know the attributes of the persons who are infected with a particular disease. This is because HAS at ELKAN tracks not only diseases, but also geographical information and census information.
Census data contain demographic details categorized by geographical areas. ELKAN has been successfully able to map certain diseases to certain attributes of patients. For example, HAS suggests that diseases like cardiac ailments, joint pains have high levels of occurrence in elder people. Ortho-related ailments have a high incidence of occurrence in females. This information has also been utilized by ELKAN to map to the lifestyle of people. Further, if high number of people in a given area of a particular age group report backache, HAS maps area to census data which suggests the occupation taken by people in that area. If the mapping yields a similar occupational background for most of the people in that area, backaches can be probably attributed to that occupation. All this information helps ELKAN medicine to research for possible medicines to cure such diseases which are attributed to specific age group, area, occupation, etc. Besides, it also launches campaigns targeted at such specific groups of people such as for aged, for females to generate awareness about possible disease which can afflict them and promote their own treatments. HAS can identify patterns of occurrence of diseases and then relate it with different information sources of HAS to determine the cause and treat it effectively.
Healthcare Analytics System
Patient data
Census data GIS
data
One most common pattern of disease occurrence in patients emerges from seasonal variations. It is well known that seasonal variations, mostly affect people who have low immunity or have sensitivity towards the same. ELKAN medicine captures and analyses this data with the help of the HAS in their database. Such analysis aids ELKAN Medicine to identify the specific area where a pattern emerges, so that adequate and timely supply of medicines is available in that area even before the disease is reported by patients. ELKAN is also monitoring cases of newborn area wise. HAS then computes the probable birth rate in that area and the company is able to maintain a proper supply of vaccinations which are generally prescribed by doctors for infants.
Another application of HAS is identification of diseases prevalent in a particular area. Analysis of diagnosis by doctors of ELKAN hospitals for such specific diseases suggests contamination of natural resources like air, water due to radiations or presence of harmful chemicals in the same.
Careful monitoring of these diseases by ELKAN from regional perspective aids in pinpointing the specific geographical areas so that new medicines can be developed to treat such particular diseases. Recently, ELKAN medicine has also included the list of all the fast food joints, hotels and restaurants in a given area in their database. This information aids ELKAN to track possible eating disorders in a particular area, which can be the reason for diseases like obesity, acidity etc.
in those areas. With the help of HAS software, it is possible to analyze the data of patients suffering from obesity, acidity, gastro-enteritis, etc. and relate that information with eating joints present in that specific area to find out the eating habits of the people in that particular area.
When analysis reveals high incidence of obese patients from an area which has a large number of eating joints as well, ELKAN Medicines has taken an initiative to open its own slimming centers at appropriate locations in such areas. Moreover, in these identified areas, doctors at ELKAN Hospitals suggest their patients to follow a strict dietary regime and usage of weight loss shakes manufactured by ELKAN.
ELKAN medicine also provides emergency services like ambulances and first-aid services.
Some areas are prone to accidents and in several cases of critically injured people; chances of death are high since emergency services do not reach the accident spot in time. To avoid these kinds of circumstances, the company is applying HAS software to identify the accident prone areas. It analyses the data regarding emergency accident cases reported at its own hospitals and other hospitals in the areas providing emergency services, where people were critically injured.
This application of analytics has enabled ELKAN Medicine to identify accident prone areas and deploy ambulances 24x7 at such spots where chances of critical injury are higher. It also provides on the spot first aid services at such locations to minimize the response time and increase the chances of survival of patients.
Discussion questions
1. What do understand by GIS? How did ELKAN implement GIS to develop a Healthcare analytics system?
2. How does HAS at ELKAN aid in prediction of epidemic outbreaks?
3. How has ELKAN been able to provide timely emergency services?
4. What possible advantages can be gained by combining eating joints data with patients’
data at ELKAN HAS?
