Utilization of Telehealth in India

Health care technology is in use for a decade or more in India. The use of technology in healthcare especially in public health is very common due to the recent development in Information Communication Technology. The costs of equipments in ICT are generally falling. The present paper is looking at various studies on Telehealth technology. Based on the data available on the utilization it also tries to explain the utilization pattern. The utilization of such systems depends on various factors. They include, costs of setting up and maintaining such systems, the availability of man power, e-readiness, availability of equipments, cost of access, enabling regulatory environment, sustainability of such systems and so on. The Telemedicine user meet held in May 2007 at Ahmedabad, India, there were 30612 super specialty consultations since the inception. As per the data available, there are 563 super-specialty consultations per month in 10 centres in India.Telehealth, Telemedicine, Ehealth, IT in Healthcare, Healthcare, India, Utilization

Rebordering the borders created by multidisciplinary sciences: A study

Emergence of “Glass ceiling” like phenomena in the minds of professionals doing research in a multidisciplinary subject needs to be studied. For an example, computational neurosciences(CNS) comprises of neurology, cognitive science, psychology, computer science, physics, mathematics, information technology, radiology, anthropology, sociology, and biology. When a specialist doing research in a multidisciplinary science like computational neuroscience, know less about other disciplines. This at times leads to tension among the members of the multidisciplinary group. This may create an environment where some members feel excluded. This may also lead to a power structure among different professionals. In case of CNS, the biological scientists feel the computational and engineering sciences may use their mathematical power to control them. On the other hand the engineering scientists feel they need to learn more about biology to understand CNS. The highly technical medical specialist such as Electro physiologists were also feeling like the biologists. As computational neurosciences gaining more importance, it is important to understand the interaction among the scientists from different disciplines and its effect on the development of discipline. The present paper is an attempt to study the dynamics of the members of the multidisciplinary group, who have done their short course on CNS.Multidisciplinary Research, Computational Neuroscience, interaction, education, research

Impact of Migration on Health

Human Resources in Health is becoming important in these days. The Human Resources is an important area to be addressed for better healthcare delivery. Health is a sector which depends much on the human resources compared to other sectors. The human resources is the base for carrying out the services in health. The human resources in health includes professionals, technicians and auxiliaries. The workforce engaged in promotion and protection of health of members of the community. As per the available figures, in India 17.5 % Doctors posts were vacant in 2006. There are also shortfall in Nursing positions, and other health worker positions. About 50% of All India Institute of Medical Sciences(An institute of national importance in Medicine in India) students have migrated either to overseas or to private sectors. This is a problem faced by all developing countries. It is also important to note that all those who have migrated belong to the economically actuve age group. Majority of them are physicians, nurses, dentists and pharmacists. The present study is a meta analysis based on detailed review of different studies in the area of migration in health. The objective of the study is to find the impact of migration of health workers on health.Health, HR, Human Resources, Developing Countries, Migration

Tourism Marketing: A Service Marketing perspective

Tourism is a service sector which earns a substantial foreign exchange to developing countries. In India, Kerala is one of the important destination for the international tourists with its unique nature beauty with backwaters, mountains and beaches. To make the tourism a great success one has to take advantage of the modern technology to full extent. Present paper is an attempt to market tourism by adapting the service marketing approach for achieving great success.Tourism, Service Marketing, 8 Ps, Marketing Mix

Information Economics and Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual property rights is a concern for developing countries ever since the publication of Dunkel proposal. Creation of WTO has generated fear in the minds of member nations. These efforts have been viewed as a strategy by the developed world to control the developing world. In India there were discussions on the impact of WTO on agriculture, manufacturing and service sectors. There were specific instances in which very strong criticisms were raised on the patenting of Basmati rice, ponni rice, turmeric and other agricultural products. There were also anxieties on what will be the impact of WTO in other sectors. One such sector is Information Technology. IT contributes substantially to Indian economy. It is very important to understand the importance of WTO and IPR on IT sector. The present article is an effort to discuss impacts of IPR on IT.ICT, IPR, Information Economics, Information Goods

Socio-economic Impact of Sethusamudram Project

Any major development project has both benefits and disadvantages to the society. Many development projects have very high economic benefit and at the same time lead to environmental hazard. One such project is Sethudamudram project initiated by Government of India. This is a project which aims at minimising the distance of navigation for the goods transport in the sea. This paper is an attempt to study the socio-economic impact of the project based on the secondary data.EIA, Environment, Marine, Economic Impact, Sethusamudram

Technology based Health care an Indian perspective : opportunities and challenges

Healthcare technology is in use for a decade or more in India. The use of technology in healthcare especially in public health is very common due to the recent development in Information Communication Technology. The cost of equipments in ICT in general are falling. But in healthcare, some of the equipments costs very high. Such equipments are commissioned in various locations in India. This includes some of the remote areas. The present talk is an attempt to assess the effect of such technology on the public health system. The utilisation of such systems depends on various factors. They include, costs involved in maintaining such systems, the benefits of such systems to the health personnel and the general population, what are the advantages of such systems over the traditional systems, what are the benefits of such systems on the administration, the impact on the managerial efficiency, how does the system address the HR needs in the public health, what the skills expected out of the health personnel and the general population for using such systems.IT facilitated Health, Health, Telemedicine, Telehealth, HIS

Social Networks and Decision Making: Women’s Participation in Household Decisions

Decision making is always been an important in social setting. For understanding the process of decision making it is important to understand as to how people make decisions and the factors influence the decisions. Studies (Srinivasan and Sharan 2005, Pescosolido, 1992) show that decisions are not made in isolation but they are the products of influence and confluence of social correlates. These studies emphasize that the decisions are not made in isolation but in consultation with other members. This raises an important question of how individual’s choices no longer of his or her own but socially constructed. This emphasizes how individuals consult with others while making decisions. From this it clear that the matters relating to health are also decided in consultation with the other members of the community. From this we can understand how decision making is important in a family setting for an individual. Literatures on social network (Srinivasan and Sharan 2005) have suggested the importance of social interaction on health decisions. They also suggest social networks help the individuals to learn to handle problematic situations. In National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3)(2005-06), under “Women’s empowerment and demographic and health outcomes” discussed the importance of wife’s participation in household decision making. According to NFHS-3, it is important to study the above aspect which will help in understanding the status and empowerment of women in society and within their households. It is thus critical to promote change in reproductive behaviour. This reminds the importance of Social Network by Bott(1957).According Bott Social Network is conjugal role relationships. According to her the degree of segregation in the role relationship of husband and wife varies directly with the connectedness of the family’s social network. The more connected the network, the greater the degree of segregation between the roles of husband and wife and vice versa.Health Management, Women, Family, Health seeking behaviour

ICT in Education: A Study of Public Health Education

Modern technologies such as Information Communication Technologies have helped many of the development sectors. One of the sectors it has lot of scope to develop is the Education. It is also evident from the experience that the benefits of these technologies have contributed much in the area of healthcare. However, these benefits come with few limitations. A technology is useful only if (a) the systems are designed keeping the user perspective mind, (b) if the users are trained on those systems, (c) users recognize the need for a system and (d) users feel there is a need for such system. Developing a system for an application does not necessarily lead to usage. Many developments ended without giving any benefit to society. For the better usage and the benefits, one has to have a commitment to promote the system among the appropriate users by demonstrating the benefits of such systems. This further discouraged by the restrictions imposed by the IPR regime. There is some relief now due to the popularization of the free software movements. This paper is an effort to highlight the benefits of such systems in public health education with special reference to the open source online tools. Author is a faculty of a Public Health school teaching health management course to the students of public health. The paper addresses the importance of ICT systems in training the public health professionals. It also discusses the benefits and limitations of such system. The present system is a complementary teaching method to the existing classroom teaching.ICT Education, Online Tools, Learning Management System

Program Management for Social Development

Program Management is an important step in Social Development. There are variety of uses of the term "program" in organizations. In general use, a program is a collection of organizational resources that is geared to accomplish a certain major goal or set of goals. This definition of a program is similar to that of an organization and a system. A program is also an organization and a system. It is created for a purpose for a time period. Program is a time bound set of activities having larger scope than a project. Otherwise the steps of Program Management is similar to that of Project Management.Program Management, Planning, Health, Situation Analysis, LFA, Programming, Evaluation, Monitoring