Category: India

  • What level is your EMR/EHR?

    What level is your EMR/EHR?

    EMRs that double the work — systems where the EMR is used for documentation or compliance, but all the real work happens in written form, so this just increases the net amount of work done. [Admittedly, this is a problem of the administrative system, not so much the EMR itself, at times] (a large  majority […]

  • Book review: The Truth Pill by  Thakur & Thikkavarapu

    Book review: The Truth Pill by Thakur & Thikkavarapu

    An Important book written in ALL CAPS Thakur, D. S., & Thikkavarapu, P. R. (2022). The Truth Pill: The Myth of Drug Regulation in India. Simon and Schuster. Topics covered in this book: What I liked about the book: Thorough research into how things are supposed to work in the area of drug regulations in […]

  • What are Artificial Neural Networks and  how do they work? A non technical explanation

    What are Artificial Neural Networks and how do they work? A non technical explanation

    Note: This is a guide for people without a math and code background, written by a medico for other people from a medical/biology background (skip the bio bits if you aren’t from bio). If you are the mathy type, this is not for you, there’s plenty other resources. Introduction: What is this AI business? Artificial […]

  • What All EHRs/EMRs get wrong

    What All EHRs/EMRs get wrong

    This is what a handwritten history sheet (which is where we write down the most important details that we extract from a patient or responder about the case). Source And this is what the most popular EHR/EMR User interfaces that are meant to enter the same details as the history sheet look like See a […]

  • Video of the talk Telemedicine Policies and Standards in India

    Video of the talk Telemedicine Policies and Standards in India

    Dr. Gowri Kulkarni addresses doctor attitudes and components of practicing telemedicine, Jasmine George of Hidden Pockets speaks of patient experiences, experiences with seeking sexual and reproductive health online and access to safe abortions using telemedicine. Everything I said is reproduced and augmented in an earlier post on telemedicine policies in India. Here I will point […]

  • A guide to telemedicine policies and problems in India

    A guide to telemedicine policies and problems in India

    This post originally appeared on Karana’s blog , this iteration has a TOC, more references and has been edited to make things clearer. Many of these updates especially the footnotes were due to Dr. Verghese Thomas‘s comments. Introduction This post builds on the questions that were raised in the talk: Telemedicine Policies and Standards in India , […]

  • Let’s welcome automation in clinical medicine

    Let’s welcome automation in clinical medicine

    The longer I work in clinical medicine, the firmer my belief that a truly patient-centrist health system can be built only if we move away from hospital-centric medicine and let patients take charge of their health. We need to consciously/purposefully move towards a clinical model where parts of the decision making process are augmented and […]

  • Outercourse

    Outercourse

    I heard the term “outercourse’ for the first time in college. We were in a consultation room and in walks a resident to discuss a case with the prof. He says “sir patient has done outercourse and wants to take ipill”. The prof gave him a lecture about how you don’t have to discuss every […]

  • Digital health – Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater

    Digital health – Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater

    Dr. John provided us with an excellent summary of the ills of the specialization/hospitalization system in his article here. A summary of what he said is: Provide good primary care, not flashy (digital) solutions and tertiary care complexes.  There is no doubt that primary care needs to be the foundation of good healthcare however, it […]

  • Our basic nature

    Our basic nature

    “It is one of my fundamental beliefs that not only do we inherently posses the potential for compassion but I believe  that the basic or underlying nature of human beings is gentleness. —[Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama] For most of my life, I have held that man is essentially a base, angry, hurtful animal. Gentleness and kindness are acquired through […]